A new white paper written by Michael Weinberg, “What’s the Deal with Copyright and 3D Printing”, attempts to parse the legalese of copyright and establish what can and can’t be protected and how 3D printing blurs the lines of this legal protection. People often confuse the application of copyright and patent right.
Over at the Economist’s Babbage blog there’s an interesting article about the future of 3D printing, and how ideas about piracy might “clip the wings” of an industry that is just beginning to soar. In his article, N.V.
Vested interests protect their business models. The cotton growers lobbied the US govt to outlaw Hemp. Australian Mining Companies are doing everything they can to stop the looming Mining Tax.
The 3D printout of a Penrose Triangle that sparked a DMCA takedown claim. When Popular Mechanics gave Hod Lipson a Breakthrough Award in 2007 for his small-scale 3D printer, Fab@Home, he told us that at-home fabrication was “a revolution waiting to happen.” He was right. Today, almost anyone— even Jay Leno —can use free 3D design programs like 3Dtin to design a digital object, then turn those pixels into a physical object by using either their own 3D printer (such as a Makerbots) or a website that will print that item for them (such as Shapeways ).

