3D Printers and Piracy

[theultimateend]

So, this is kinda a short question. With the rise of 3D printers on the horizon, do you think we'll be seeing toy companies and other "hard goods" companies complaining about people just printing copies of their statue, or toy, or model?

I'm wondering if we'll see something like steam where you have access to a ton of Skus that you can buy to print out products in your own home.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

ever seen a 3D printer? theyre massive. and expensive. plus, you'd need a reference model, and materials... wouldnt be worth it.

 

[Fightgarr]

While 3D printers exist, they're still incredibly expensive and rare. I don't see them headed to the mass market anytime soon, let alone getting to the point where any significant portion of the population has one.

 

[Stealthygamer]

The price of getting the equipment is not worth the payout, unless you use it with MINECRAFT.

 

[shmagiggywokka]

3D printers also have a quality tolerance depending on which machine is used, so basically you have a physical "pixellation" problem, meaning smooth surfaces can feel like a fingerprint. I've used a Rapid Prototyper a couple of times, and they certainly are massive, and take a great deal of $$ to operate (material components primarily).

Until they get to the size of a standard printer/scanner I doubt there'll be any huge piracy problems.

:{>

 

[Anarchemitis]

3D Printers are expensive. Far more expensive than that which would justify goods duplication without licence or permission. Even so, CNC milling machines (which are essentially the same thing but with metal and no color) have been around for over a decade and goods duplication has not been an issue.

 

[Bruden]

"incredibly expensive and rare" not really, there's a lot of people working on spreading them to the masses quickly. In fact an indiegogo campaign just wrapped up that was handing out 3D printers for $700 fully assembled and ready to print. At not even the full cost of a decent computer 3D printers are cheap and lots of people are making them, which means it just takes people realizing how cool they are for it to become wide spread.

OT: I doubt it, while some people might do that I would expect the majority of users to be individual artists making personal items, especially if they happen to be a table top gamer. (Seriously the desire to finish my film project is the only thing that stopped me from having a 3D printer already just to make custom minis for DnD games.)

 

[infohippie]

Eventually, 3D printers will become ubiquitous. They're big and expensive now, but that will change. A lot will depend on the copyright landscape at the time. If IP law continues down the path the US has been trying to push it, then the shapes of pretty much everything will be copyrighted and owned by corporations. If we can push IP law down a more consumer-friendly path, great possibilities might open up.
I'd like to recommend Cory Doctorow's short story Printcrime [http://craphound.com/?p=573] to anyone interested in this topic. In fact, I'd like to recommend all of Cory Doctorow's work to anyone interested in the fight against too-broad IP law.

 

[Dags90]

Eventually, 3D printers will become ubiquitous. They're big and expensive now, but that will change. A lot will depend on the copyright landscape at the time. If IP law continues down the path the US has been trying to push it, then the shapes of pretty much everything will be copyrighted and owned by corporations. If we can push IP law down a more consumer-friendly path, great possibilities might open up.

It also depends, "hard goods" if I'm interpreting the OP right would be covered under patent law, not copyright. I'm not exactly why we have a distinction between patent law and copyright, but we do and it's quite extreme the differences between the two.

Suffice it to say, when replicators become reality, gold pressed latinum will be the only thing of value anymore.

 

[tobuji]

you can print in 3D now? when the hell did this happen?