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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: 1) by Moof123 on Friday January 08 2016, @10:20PM
Before we "cut China off at the knees" we would need to actually be 3D printing a fair amount of actually useful stuff. Most of what I see from the few folks i know with a 3D printer are trinkets, and crude ones that that. Monochromatic busts (3D selfie?), pencil holders, and such are not exactly going to knock China off the world stage. After all, it is plastic junk and being 3D printed just makes it slightly more exciting plastic junk.
The real money is in complex things such as batteries, semiconductors, precision machined parts, and so on. 3D printers might be able to make a cool housing for the real stuff, but that is not where the real action is. So far 3D printers are just too niche to live up to their hype. We will definitely see more useful stuff out of the high end stuff, but it is just displacing things like CNC mills at a somewhat reduced cost. Frankly I would rather have a Bridgeport milling machine at my disposal any day over any of the 3D printers available at the consumer range.