Copyright vs. 3D printing
arstechnica.comI think we're finding out the absurdity of copyright and patents by forcing these kind of concepts to face the redutio ad absurdum of the day, which are technologies like 3D printing.
On the other hand, the past is full of interesting example of PATENT FAIL like Whitney's failure to enforce the cotton gin, but he got rich with producing munition for the US army, while at the same time inventing the concept of interchangeable parts.
We saws that American writers hating their competitors from England because of the massive piracy of British literature leading domination in the American literacy market. Some English writers managed to make more money from the American than he could collect via some amount of royalty years. It was only when large publishing house finally change their tune that the American finally recognize British copyright.
We also saw James Watt's partner using the parliament to extend patents for Watt's steam engine invention. This waste to tremedous wasteful effort from Watt suing various people for violating his patents. In reality, Watt was just one of the many steam engine inventors, who hampered other steam engine inventors' ability to make a living and build on top of his work. He also ironically got hampered by some other guy's patent, forcing him to use inferior design for his steam engine.
There's a great book about all of this, "Against Intellectual Monopoly." [1]
There's an interesting bit about the English/American writer thing you mention, specifically Dickens. From chapter two:
Arguments about intellectual property now seem to always focus on the ability of the author to make money, and not about the basic reason that the concept of IP was created: it was a gift from society to creators to both help them and encourage the enrichment of society at large. The dramatic rise in UGC demonstrates that 'creators gonna create' anyway, so the deal makes less and less sense for society to keep up.The amount of revenues British authors received up front from American publishers often exceeded the amount they were able to collect over a number of years from royalties in the UK. Notice that, at the time, the US market was comparable in size to the UK market. More broadly, the lack of copyright protection, which permitted the United States publishers’ “pirating” of English writers, was a good economic policy of great social value for the people of United States, and of no detriment, as the Commission report and other evidence confirm, for English authors. Not only did it enable the establishment and rapid growth of a large and successful publishing business in the United States; also, and more importantly, it increased literacy and benefited the cultural development of the American people by flooding the market with cheap copies of great books. As an example: Dickens’ A Christmas Carol sold for six cents in the US, while it was priced at roughly two dollars and fifty cents in England. This dramatic increase in literacy was probably instrumental for the emergence of a great number of United States writers and scientists toward the end of the nineteenth century.There's also a part in the book about the steam engine stuff, too, but this is already getting long...
1: http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.h...
UGC is one thing, but without financial backing largely enabled by IP, it’s hard to imagine the most epic and polished movies & games would still be made.
A great recent counterexample to this is Avatar, right? Super expensive, all financed by Cameron, right? Made tons of cash.
There will probably be less made, you're right. But they'll still get made.
But he recouped the money through charging people to see the movie. Not a counter-example at all.
He did. It was also available to download for free on the Internet.
"No IP" does not mean "You can't charge for things." Enough people would rather go to a movie theater than get on Bittorrent that he made his money back.
Side note: I was one of those people. I wear Pirate Bay tshirts around, I'd throw out all IP law if I was in charge... but I did pay money to go to the theater to see Avatar. Going to the theater and getting that crazy huge screen, great sound system, and (maybe) the 3D was totally worth it.
The fact that it worked for one movie does not mean that it would work any other movie.
The hook with Avatar was that it was a spectacle deliberately designed to be seen in 3D on the biggest screen possible, to the extent that there's very little point not seeing it in a movie theatre.
It's a unique example and its impact (and profitability) would be lessened by a) competition by similar movies and b) greater adoption of home 3D hardware.
Absolutely. There's no question that without IP, things would be different. The real question is if it would be a better or worse world.
In my mind, the answer is “better” if we also no longer need to worry about money (that is, a post-capitalist system). I’m not sure about the meantime.
The book that I cited up there in my huge post actually lays out a pretty compelling argument that it even works within capitalism.
IP is a pretty new concept. Things have worked really well for a long time without it.
Yes, capitalism is a pretty new concept also. The two go hand-in-hand.
But never before in history have we been able to copy media ad infinitum for practically zero time, cost and effort. It's always required time, an educated, talented person to copy, or resources that had a real cost.
In the case of the 3D printer the only real expense is the plastic used to print the object, which is awesome only for those who manufacture the materials.
Actually, it's pretty funny: the materials are the only place where they make their money. 3D printers are sold on a total razor and blade model, the machine manufacturers make 70% of their money from materials, and something like 5% on actual machines.
Then things like this happen: http://open3dp.me.washington.edu/2009/10/sugar-sugar-powder/
> The cost of this mix is $0.15 – $0.30 per pound!
>Enough people would rather go to a movie theater then get on Bittorrent
True, but i guarantee that Movie theaters would rather get on Bittorrent rather than pay millions of dollars in fees to James Cameron. The only thing stopping them is IP laws.
Fascinating his wife’s movie, released the same year, actively litigated those who shared the movie online.
Patents and copyright were a tremendous progress back in the 1700s when you need a "privilege" from the King to undertake about anything. Nowadays they're just some sort of fossilized roadblock from the past. Here's another fine example of this sorry state of the matter.
This & P2P mesh “internet” are Doctorow’s favorite topics, if his stories are any indication
My favorite of his short stories on the subject, Printcrime: http://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked...
Next step: automated home chemistry setups that turn near-arbitrary feedstock containing the right elements into soap, food, shampoo, beer, plastic resin, ...
..., Rohypnol, viagra, duct tape, ...
This whole copyright vs 3D printing thing is interesting, but the bigger, more important battle right now is actually patents vs. 3D printing.
The entrenched players in the industry have large patent portfolios, and this hurts the ability of projects like the RepRap to actually make improvements. We probably could have had all of these kinds of projects years ago, but the patents are only now starting to run out...
What evidences to suggest that these kind of projects didn't start because of patents?
First of all, IANAL.
Secondly, it would appear to me that MakerBot, for example, is pretty blatantly infringing on the FDM patents that Stratasys has. Those are about to run out Real Soon Now, though, so they're probably fine.
Third, the industry has shaped up the way that it has because of patents. There's a reason there's 14 different ways to do 3D printing. Yeah, some are better at some things than others, but realistically, we'd really have like 3 or 4 processes if there were no patents to force new hardware companies to reinvent the wheel all the time.
The fact that there's pretty much a 1-1 mapping between companies and processes suggests that it's difficult to start a business in this area, due to the large amount of capital needed to invent a new way of doing things.
It does seem to me that new companies can't start, but I doubt somebody really interested in 3D printing research would really care?
But we'd move forward faster if we had both startups and university research working on the problem.
I'm not saying that it quashes all of it, just that it's set back personal fabrication 25 years.
I'm not saying that it quashes all of it, just that it's set back personal fabrication 25 years.
Forgive me for my historical ignorance, is there any sort of open hardware movement 25 years ago?
If not, than replication technology 25 years ago would probably have a different character.
The parallels between the makerbot/reprap and the Altair 8800 in 1975 is very interesting. It couldn't do much, but it marked the start of the "personal" computer era. Microsoft made it's first piece of software for that machine.
I would assume it would be almost exactly the same as digital media works today, while it is best to manufacture things in mass quantities a CD of the machines components will be shipped with the dish washer. The opening of the box will imply acceptance of the licensing agreement for the machine. An alternative, is you get access to the washing machine support site with the warranty number included. You would be purchasing the right to the design, and maybe 1 working copy of a part at a time.
if we ever got to the point where it makes more sense for you to manufacture the entire product at home, then the concept would be the same. You are purchasing the rights to manufacture 1 working copy. If you give the files to another person who uses them, technically they are breaking the law.
Of course I think this is all kind of ridiculous. However the only solution I can think of to combat piracy is to crowd source the funding to the creation of new plans, and release the product in the public domain.