After being enjoined from distributing 3D CAD Files of firearms from his website, DEFCAD.com, Cody Wilson announces plans to sell the files for any chosen price.
In other words: If he can't be the "Napster" of crypto-guns, he'll be the "iTunes," Wilson told reporters at a press conference Tuesday in Austin.
...
Josh Blackman, Wilson's lawyer, said in an interview Tuesday that selling the blueprints directly to people within the United States is perfectly legal."It's not about distribution, it's about posting them," Blackman said. "There's no prohibition on distributing these files — the prohibition is on doing it in a way that foreign persons can access."
Also at The Register, BBC, and Ars Technica.
Previously: Federal Judge Imposes Preliminary Injunction Against Defense Distributed's DEFCAD
Related Stories
Judge allows temporary ban on 3D-printed gun files to continue
A federal judge in Seattle has ruled against Defense Distributed, imposing a preliminary injunction requiring the company to keep its 3D-printed gun files offline for now.
US District Judge Robert Lasnik found in his Monday ruling that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed based on their argument that the Department of State, in allowing for a modification of federal export law, had unwittingly run afoul of a different law, the Administrative Procedure Act. In essence, the judge found that because the Department of State did not formally notify Congress when it modified the United States Munitions List, the previous legal settlement that Defense Distributed struck with the Department of State—which allowed publication of the files—is invalid.
As Ars has reported, Defense Distributed is the Texas-based company involved in a years-long lawsuit with the Department of State over publication of those files and making them available to foreigners. The company runs DEFCAD, perhaps the best-known online repository of gun files.
[...] Judge Lasnik's ruling today only briefly addressed the fact that the files are already available on numerous sites, including Github, The Pirate Bay, and more. These files have circulated online since their original publication back in 2013. (Recently, new mirrors of the files have begun to pop up.) "It is not clear how available the nine files are: the possibility that a cybernaut with a BitTorrent protocol will be able to find a file in the dark or remote recesses of the Internet does not make the posting to Defense Distributed's site harmless," he wrote.
Will legalnauts with gavels smack down this injunction?
Previously: Landmark Legal Shift for 3D-Printed Guns
[Updated] Defense Distributed Releasing Gun Plans, President Trump "Looking Into" It
Related: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home
FedEx Refuses to Ship Defense Distributed's Ghost Gunner CNC Mill
We had submissions from two Soylentils on this story.
3D-Printed Gun Activist Cody Wilson Charged With Sexual Assault, Misses Flight Back From Taiwan
3-D Printed Gun Promoter, Cody Wilson, Is Charged With Sexual Assault of Child (archive)
Cody Wilson, whose push to post blueprints for 3-D printed guns online has made him a key figure in the national gun control debate, was charged on Wednesday with sexually assaulting a child in Texas.
But law enforcement officers said they were having trouble finding Mr. Wilson, who missed a flight back to the United States from Taipei, Taiwan, his last known location. During a news conference on Wednesday, Cmdr. Troy Officer of the Austin Police Department said that a warrant had been filed for Mr. Wilson's arrest and that local detectives were working with national and international partners to find him.
Mr. Wilson, 30, is accused of having sex with a 16-year-old girl at a hotel in Austin on Aug. 15 and paying her $500 in cash, according to an affidavit filed in Travis County. The girl told the police that she had met Mr. Wilson through the website SugarDaddyMeet.com, where he was using the screen name "Sanjuro," the affidavit says.
[...] She and Mr. Wilson, who identified himself to the girl, exchanged phone numbers and then continued messaging each other, sharing at least one explicit photo apiece, according to the affidavit. During one conversation, Mr. Wilson described himself as a "big deal," the affidavit says.
[...] Neither Mr. Wilson nor his lawyer in the sexual assault case responded to a request for comment. The Austin police said a friend of the victim had told Mr. Wilson before he left for Taiwan that he was under investigation.
Taiwan does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.
Looks like someone else will have to take on the job of defending file sharing in court.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday August 29 2018, @03:11AM (6 children)
You might be asking yourself, why would anyone pay for these files when they can download them for free? Well, it's just another way of donating to Cody Wilson/Defense Distributed. It could also entice another prosecutor or Attorney General to go after him for distributing under this new angle. Cody Wilson wants a legal confrontation that results in the Supreme Court affirming our right to distribute these kinds of files/instructions.
Apparently this is pay what you want with a suggestion of $10, but some are paying $0-1. And you get the files on a flash drive. Kinda like Cryptome [cryptome.org], but probably a much smaller flash drive.
He launched a fundraiser with a goal of $400k on Aug. 20, was up to ~$120k on Aug. 24, and $212k right now.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday August 29 2018, @04:01AM (5 children)
Thus being able to enforce the requirement to not let "furriners" get hold of the files.
The ones that are already downloadable from the internet.
Keeping within the law AND rasing money.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday August 29 2018, @04:39AM (4 children)
By getting paid, one must surrender payment credentials.
Now, someone knows just WHO is interested in the files.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday August 29 2018, @04:46AM (3 children)
I'm on the checkout page and there's an option to pay using Bitcoin. Not perfect, but potentially better.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday August 29 2018, @11:32AM (2 children)
Wear a Balaklava when you pay cash for BitCoin from a local BitCoin Cambio.
There are several Mobile Apps for that.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 29 2018, @01:03PM
I read that initially as 'Wear Baklava when you pay cash...'
I think I need new glasses...though there might be some fun involved in the crafting of a Baklava Balaclava..
(Score: 3, Funny) by Freeman on Wednesday August 29 2018, @04:19PM
I'm quite sure you meant "Balaclava": "A knitted cap covering the head and neck with an opening for the eyes or face, used as cold-weather gear especially by soldiers, mountain climbers, and skiers." https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Balaclava [thefreedictionary.com]
Not "Balaklava": "A section of the city of Sevastopol in Crimea ..." https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Balaklava [thefreedictionary.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Wednesday August 29 2018, @06:05AM
If you want to watch the press conference he held earlier today, it is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFlAyxSRsOc [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Wednesday August 29 2018, @06:22AM (7 children)
Point 1. The information is already out there. Perhaps not as easy to find as it was a short while back, but the details are known by a lot of 'foreigners'. Something to do with 'stable doors' and 'locks' springs to mind.
Point 2. Does the US judiciary really believe that no-one outside of the USA will be able to design a 3D printable gun? The fact that it has been achieved, albeit for a single shot weapon, means that others will try. Some will be successful. Ammunition will be a bigger problem for some countries outside the USA, but that will be resolved too, unfortunately.
I'm not sure what it actually being achieved by this prohibition.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jmorris on Wednesday August 29 2018, @06:52AM (4 children)
He is distributing more than the one shot "Liberator" plastic gun. It is just a demo that can be printed now.
vz58, ruger_10-22, ar10, liberator, ar15, 1911, beretta_92fs are in the archive I'm sharing on BT. Obviously one would need a more advanced printer for the others. But then DD also sells a computer controlled milling machine capable of turning an unregulated "80% lower" into a ready to use part and everything else on an AR15 is available "off the rack" as spare / after market upgrade parts. Others have access to 3d printers that can work with metal and the price and availability of such equipment will only improve. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle now, gun control will soon be as dead as the old Soviet Era controls on printing presses.
We all know that only a small modification is required to convert the civilian AR15 into a real select fire military version. As software it will be but a minor "patch" floating on the dark web. The government will never know how many people have printed and tested a full auto mod, then squirreled it safely away for SHTF day. Which will help tilt the balance of terror back toward the citizens and keep the peace.
And do ya know what the result of all this will be? Absolutely nothing. Which is the entire point. Arms are the most available as they have been in decades and that is now going to be locked in. And it is a good thing. Misuse of legal weapons is rare. Especially among the more serious, the ones who would be making their own, the sort who spend lots of time at the range shooting, members of the NRA, etc. the rate of misuse is trivial. The gun nuts will now have the power to keep the 2nd Amendment against all comers. Now it is up to US to keep the Internet free and so preserve the 1st.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 29 2018, @08:02AM (2 children)
It is so funny that jmorris thinks that running a CNC milling machine is just like sending a file to a machine that squirts out droplets of molten plastic! Machinists, and gunsmiths, unlike conservatives, actually have to know stuff, rather than just going off about it. "Spray and pray" is not about spittle, but it is just as effective, either way. Which is to say, "not".
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday August 29 2018, @03:30PM
Machinists and gunsmiths tend to be conservative or libertarian more often than not.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday August 29 2018, @04:20PM
CNC machines and 3D printers both use g-code, you can send a file to either machine. They both require regular maintenance and calibration, you can't just indefinitely send files to either machine and expect reasonable results. I think you're either overestimating the difficulty of running a CNC machine, underestimating the difficulty of running a 3D printer, or both.
Please don't make me defend jmorris again, it hurts.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday August 29 2018, @11:39AM
Some Kuron explained to me that anyone at all could make an AK-47 out of one square foot of sheet metal and a barrel that a machinist must fabricate.
To work that sheet metal one mostly uses a Bending Brake and a foot-operated sheet metal shear. There's a proper name for this shear but it's 4:30 in the morning and my paying client is getting impatient with me.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday August 29 2018, @11:36AM (1 child)
If you're patient and diligent enough it's not hard at all to make black powder out of Horse Diuretic.
You can make lead ball by hurling a crucible of molten lead from a modest tower into a basin of water. That's how it was actually done by both sides during our Revolution.
That the manufacture of firearms from strictly-specified interchangeable parts was such a big deal was due to someone having figured out how to make balls that are all the same size, but I don't know how that was actually done.
When the owner of that particular Defense Manufacturer asked the US Army's purchasing agent to pick out gun parts completely at random then assemble them into a complete flintlock, that purchasing agent gave that particular Defense Manufacturer a totally righteous rimjob.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Wednesday August 29 2018, @03:34PM
I'm reading a book called "The Perfectionists" which contains a detailed rendition of that story among others.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek