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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 Nuke on Saturday January 09 2016, @10:59AM
All that most people are saying that 3-D printing is being over-hyped - with statements like "like something from a sci-fi movie" and "cut China off at the knees". Some people seem to think that with a downloaded file and a click of the mouse they would be able to turn round to their 3-D printer and see it spit out the next model iPod.
3-D printing is certainly another tool in the box, but just that for the forseeable future. Manufacturing is far more complex than just being able to turn out a casting (because that is what 3-D printing does, and somewhat poorly), a manufacturing sub-process that was perfected in other ways a long time ago, both for metal and plastic. We need fully manipulative robots to make anything more complex - oh, they already exist but generally designed for a single purpose like paint spraying and fitting car windscreens, and out of Joe Sixpack's price range for a long time to come even for a small model.