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from the printster-will-be-the-new-napster dept.
Remember Napster or Grokster? Both services allowed users to share computer files – usually digital music – that infringed the copyrights for those songs.
Now imagine that, instead of music, you could download a physical object. Sounds like something from a sci-fi movie – push a button and there's the item! But that scenario is already becoming a reality. With a 3D printer, someone can download a computer file, called a computer-aided design (CAD) file, that instructs the printer to make a physical, three-dimensional object.
Because CAD files are digital, they can be shared across the internet on file-sharing services, just like movies and music. Just as digital media challenged the copyright system with rampant copyright infringement, the patent system likely will encounter widespread infringement of patented inventions through 3D printing. The problem is, however, that the patent system is even more ill-equipped to deal with this situation than copyright law was, posing a challenge to a key component of our innovation system.
If 3-D printing at home happened fast enough it would cut China off at the knees.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Friday January 08 2016, @04:26PM
Printing doesn't have to be good enough to print a gun to be useful. I have toaster oven I use all the time that could barely fit a turkey leg, let alone a whole turkey, and I still consider it a useful appliance despite the fact I can't roast a whole bird in it. I have a drill which I consider a very useful tool, despite the fact I can't make a whole car with it. Basically, you've chosen two items not suited for home manufacturing for various reasons (unusually strong destructive forces and massive assemblage of disparate parts) and concluded that 3D printing is good for nothing. This ignores the fact that your house is filled with much simpler items for which 3D printing would serve quite well.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday January 09 2016, @01:47AM
Like what?
The plate I ate dinner from? The fork I ate with?
Seriously. Look around you. How many things can you reach out and touch that were made out of one substance or one part?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday January 09 2016, @07:05AM
as one example, if you have a paper printer and 3D printer, you can have every board game ever made.
In the future, when home laser sintering devices become available, you can have just about any metal tool with a plastic handle. Of course you'd have to make the parts separately.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday January 09 2016, @10:22PM
Sintering != Solid Metal.
Still, would be useful to make those little car tokens for you monopoly game.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.