Impossible Triangle Jewelry

The next Napster? Copyright questions as 3D printing comes of age ...

“For better or worse,” Thingiverse founder Bre Pettis wrote on the site’s blog, “we’ve hit a milestone in the history of digital fabrication.”

A few days later, after coming under Internet scrutiny, Schwanitz rescinded his DMCA complaint and promised to release his shape into the public domain. But the damage was done. As Cory Doctorow eloquently put it, Schwanitz “became the inventor of something much more substantial than a 3D Penrose Triangle—he became the inventor of copyright threats over open 3D repositories.”

Schwanitz’s DMCA takedown notice was indeed a milestone for Thingiverse, which had operated free of any public accusations of patent or copyright infringement since it was founded. As a result of the incident, Thingiverse updated its legal page with DMCA language . But the complaint spoke to something broader, and far more significant for 3D printing as a new technology: Schwanitz’s takedown was the first shot in the next theater of the intellectual property (IP) wars. It was also the first formal attempt to apply copyright law to regulate content on a 3D printing repository of any kind.

While Ars readers have enjoyed great coverage of 3D printing-related topics, the general public still isn’t familiar with the technology. Indeed, many of my legal colleagues were baffled as I explained how any physical object can now be scanned to generate a CAD (computer-aided design) file and later recreated—anywhere, anytime—using a 3D printer. All agreed that such a technology would have unprecedented implications for intellectual property law (and vice versa).

As with all technology, as 3D printing becomes simpler, more powerful, and more common, it will catch the eyes of more lawyers, regulators, and, of course, individual designers like Ulrich Schwanitz. And that will mean conflict. Here’s a primer on some of the key legal issues that will frame the upcoming battles.

Though still in its infancy, personal 3D printing technology already shows the same disruptive potential as the original printing press. Just as moveable type spread across Europe and democratized knowledge, the proliferation of 3D printers eventually promises to democratize creation . Broken dishwasher part? Download the relevant CAD file and print it out in plastic. While Amazon made trips to the store seem dated, 3D printing will make ordering (some) things online feel positively quaint.