SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the let-the-industrial-espionage-begin dept.
In February, two artists, Nora al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles – claimed to have scanned the bust of Nefertiti in a German history museum using a handheld Kinect Sensor. They then posted the digital files online.
Their goal, they said, was to free the statue from its imprisonment inside the walls of Berlin's Neues Museum by enabling anyone with access to a 3D printer to make their own near-perfect replica – a Nefertiti for all.
Al-Badri and Nelles saw their caper as an act of cultural liberation. It was a gesture against what they believe to be a legacy of colonial theft and appropriation, in which the goods of one nation or culture – in this case, Egypt – ended up in the museums and storerooms of another.
But the stunt illustrated another possibility: the indirect heist. Instead of stealing the thing itself, you can just pilfer the set of parameters – the metadata – that define it.
Why steal the actual bust of Nefertiti when you can instead easily nab the measurements to fabricate a new one? You would not have the original but you would have the peculiar wealth that comes with possessing a potentially infinite number of exact copies.
[Related]: Cosmo Wenman has been scanning and releasing digital files of artefacts housed in the British Museum
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday May 13 2016, @04:49AM
Actually there IS one place where a copy devalues the original and is quite the controversy....guitars. The reason being is a lot of the older manufacturers didn't keep the greatest records (if they are even still around) and it can be damned hard to tell a good Chinese forgery from an original National or Mosrite and even with the companies that do keep good records its still a PITA to have to look up the serial number on every.single.guitar. you look at to make sure its not a fake.
But you can go on YouTube and find example after example of fakes, its gotten so bad that you aren't only see fakes of the really expensive makes, you are seeing fakes of the sub $1500 guitars like American Standard strats and p-basses and I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing fakes of the sub $1K guitars soon, simply because so many of the designs haven't changed in decades and are really easy to copy.
Oh and before someone chimes in "well if they look so authentic why not just play those?" the answer is simple, they are designed to LOOK exactly like the real thing, but you play it any length of time? It just falls apart. The Chinese use what is called "Chinese pot metal" which is made from all the crap we send there for recycling and while they've gotten good at making it look like brass or steel or whatever? At its core its cheap shit metal designed to last just long enough to get someone to buy it. The wood is also crap and more prone to warping, they use inferior glues, its the difference between a real sword and a wall hanger, only with the sword its easy to spot the cheap one.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.