Pirate Machine: Future Propaganda Against 3D Printers

Like any “destructive” technology of past years, from the printing press to the copying machine, 3D printers threaten to destroy the existing traditional schemes for the production of goods and commercial gain. However, manufacturers of goods with billions in turnover will not surrender without a fight. According to lawyer Michael Weinberg, an expert on intellectual property from Public Knowledge, we should expect a massive attack of rights holders here - just as powerful an attack as in the field of unlicensed copying of audio and video materials. Producers of goods are probably lobbying for the adoption of a new bill against 3D printing, by analogy with the DMCA, will start a hunt for hosters of CAD files, start criminal cases against users - and then follow the familiar list.

Without a doubt, manufacturers consider 3D-printers as a direct threat to their business. But if earlier printers were sold for tens of thousands of dollars, the latest desktop models cost a little more than $ 1000, and the situation exactly corresponds to the pre-revolutionary situation on the personal computer market of the early 90s, when universal content copying machines (computers) became available to every family. What this has led now - we know. A large-scale campaign against piracy, draconian laws like the DMCA, roundups with the closure of hundreds of sites, criminal cases against owners of "pirated" sites and even against ordinary users. The same will soon begin with CAD-models and 3D-scanners that allow you to create exact copies of other products.

According to Michael Weinberg, many product manufacturers will try to use DMCA to destroy digital models of their products. The fact is that the term of a patent does not exceed 20 years, so patents do not cover many products. At the same time, the copyright term is 70 years since the death of the author, so manufacturers will try to use copyright to protect the “form” or “design” of their proprietary product, using the DMCA in the same way as media corporations do. If the DMCA does not work, then they can lobby for the adoption of a new bill against 3D printing, by analogy with the DMCA.
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Boing Boing blog author Cory Doctorow believes that product manufacturers are organizing not only a legal but also a PR campaign against the CAD format itself. They will try to label it in a “pirated format”, as it was done with BitTorrent technology and MP3 format.

For many years of fighting piracy, media corporations have realized that fighting against ordinary users is unprofitable. Therefore, they focused on the fight against operators: hosts, Internet service providers, etc., which help to distribute unlicensed content. To date, media corporations have achieved that almost any Western company instantly destroys dubious content on their servers as soon as it receives a DMCA warning from the copyright holder, out of court.

The only thing that holds back producers of goods from the beginning of active actions is the low prevalence of new technology, says Michael Weinberg. While fans of 3D printing are hanging out in garages and workshops, nothing threatens them, but if 3D printers go to the masses, a powerful attack will begin against them.

via Economist