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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: 2) by melikamp on Friday January 08 2016, @05:58PM
There's gonna be an equilibrium. We already see some percentage of useful stuff being manufactured with 3d-printers, although for now it's just the early adopters. We can't really say they are wasting money, since they are getting exactly what they want for their money. And I believe this percentage will become a lot bigger very soon.
Thing is, sometimes we forget there is a whole range of possibilities, not just the two extremes when you either print everything in your bedroom or ship everything from a giant universal factory on the Moon. There's also a neighborhood convenience print shop. It's one block away, it houses several industrial 3d-printers, and you can just waltz in there with a memory stick and print whatever the fuck you want. Pretty tempting, if you ask me, and so probably extremely profitable for a wide range of goods.
I'd say the only real danger to this model and the savings it brings is the oppressive censorship practiced by the copyright and patent monopolists.