Copyright and 3D printers

Some interesting comments and predictions about 3D printing in the article below by Denis McEvoy. Just as we can now legally download movies and get digital TV or get pirated content via Pirate Bay, there will probably some form of dualism in the 3D printing sphere: either you can get a copyrighted 3D model you can print on a sanctioned 3D printer within a sanctioned ecosystem, a la App Store, or a free market where you can download objects for free that are either copyrighted or not. The latter already exists (Pirate Bay's Physibles)... (The intersection between copyright and 3D printing was already covered in this earlier post.)

This technology will completely change the world beyond any of our comprehensions. The effects will be extreme and wide-ranging. Over a relatively short space of time most factories could become useless, thousands of jobs would be lost and shipping and post would reduce dramatically. 

The new system of downloading everything from your food to condoms will likely see piracy remain as a major problem. Companies will probably sell us the digital blueprints of the items we want and then we'll make them in our next-generation printer. This will leave every possible product open to being pirated. How that will be curbed is something few people have even begun to think about.

Printing a new iPhone, a pair of runners - or even your dinner (Joe.ie)

The Pirate Bay offers models of physical objects for download

A pirate-ship model can be printed out from a physible file, now hosted on The Pirate Bay.

(Screenshot by Luke Hopewell/ZDNet Australia) 

ThePirateBay.org, everyone's go-to site for torrent downloads, has ventured into offering 3D models ("physibles") that users can print at home (whether copyrighted or not):

We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare sparts for your vehicles. You will download your sneakers within 20 years.