The MakerBot Obituary
5 stars based on
40 reviews
Several kinds yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator crafting and making are pushing the boundaries of existing copyright law, generating friction between content creators, rights holders, and consumers. Many of the most important battles over intellectual property are pitting established manufacturing industries against individuals and small groups working within the maker movement.
In this project, I analyze a case of patents being seized from the Creative Commons by the 3D printing company MakerBot. I then present the case and some analysis before explaining important implications for intellectual property and making. In particular, friction between makers and copyright is growing, and this friction is exposing just how broken and outdated US copyright law has become. A copyright law that was written and largely caters to traditional media production is not and will not be compatible with the maker movement.
This sentiment has already been affirmed by most of the active makers and services that have committed to an open source model of progress.
The copyleft model allows these technologies to benefit from wide audiences, the exact opposite of traditional manufacture and design processes. Unfortunately, several entities have already attempted to pull designs from the commons and attempt to patent them. For example, MakerBot has already attempted to patent three user-generated designs on Thingiverse.
All of the designs were improvements to MakerBot printers, and it is thought the company was attempting to patent them in order to remain competitive in the printing market Moody. If these cases are not successfully fought in court, yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator will establish a clear process of appropriation and no doubt bolster the ability of large companies to seize patents from users. In this essay, I analyze a case of MakerBot pulling work from the Creative Commons and attempting to patent it.
I then present the case and some analysis before explaining some important implications for intellectual property and making. I chose 3D printing because it is now positioned as the most recognizable technology in the maker movement, but also because perhaps no other technology is as important to the future intellectual property. But 3D printing cuts across all types of IP, all types of technology, and all types of products.
Eventually, anyone will be able to recreate an existing product design and manufacture and distribute it, or simply make and use it. These properties of 3D printing and its broad applications make it the best place to begin thinking about the future of intellectual property.
Yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator Maker Movement is an extension of do-it-yourself culture that rose to prominence in the United States during the s. The hallmark of do-it-yourself culture was a series of subscription magazines filled with plans, layouts, and parts for yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator designed to teach readers new skills and hobbies Daugherty The do-it-yourself movement is now experiencing a resurgence of interest complete with publications, web-spaces, conferences, and spaces devoted specifically to making things Daugherty Making is often linked explicitly to the early days of Silicon Valley, but its scope has grown past that moment in the history of technology.
Makers are still working with some of those practices, like circuit bending, a method of short circuiting consumer electronics, but also adapting those practices to contemporary contexts Hammer and Knight. Maker methods, partly informed by these historical practices and events, are being applied to other forms like the creation or making of music Walker.
Doing-it-yourself has continued to become a popular option for consumers in the wake of the Great Recession. And that frugality is paired with a Luddite-flavored revitalized interest in handmade things: We can make things, not just buy them! Communities like Etsy reflect the dual interest of cost-saving and making, and demonstrate that making is becoming more mainstream.
Ratto and Boler contend that the DIY movement and making are no longer confined to weekend hobbyists laboring in their garages. Creating something is often a political act. Making locates authority in the individual and sidesteps the often large barriers to manufacturing. The group is composed of crafters that organize via social media in order to yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator part in demonstrations par.
The groups use crafting to soften the blow of their political activity. The DIY movement is generating new economic models. They define Commons-based peer production as. This system has several implications for Benkler and Nissenbaum. They argue that when individuals are allowed to organize themselves, they are liberated from the harsh hierarchies that define traditional labor practices.
Freed from these constraints, individuals can practice independence and creativity, and these traits, for Benkler and Nissenbaum, are virtuous — we should strive to create these models and promote virtue Typically, the kind of labor described by the authors above is occurring both online and in dedicated spaces.
Maker spaces serve as collaborative sites that are open to all who wish to contribute. The most visible facet of the maker movement is 3D printing. These machines have catapulted into public view and enjoy widespread adoption in the manufacturing industry.
Though the explosion in press coverage of 3D printers only recently occurred, the technology is not new. In fact, 3D printers were conceptualized by many businesses in the s that were also developing inkjet printing technology. Existing 2D printers were modified to add the extra dimension. Many industries have since used 3D printers yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator a process called rapid prototyping, which allows yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator company to quickly test an inexpensive prototype in house before contracting with an outside manufacturing firm T Rowe Price.
These printers were large, very expensive, and often used proprietary data formats to operate, leading to a relatively small scale of adoption in industry. Over the past few years, several brands have attempted to lower costs to a point where hobbyists, small businesses, and entrepreneurs could adopt 3D printers for rapid prototyping and manufacturing. The models scale up in size, capability, and complexity depending on the needs of a consumer. For the average consumer, educator, or hobbyist, 3D printing yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator still a niche market with limited real-world applicability.
Any user familiar with CAD can create a design using sketching software that can interface with a printer. Objects can also be scanned using a 3D scanner that can be purchased yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator many of the same companies manufacturing printers.
The average consumer can also access a wide range of potentially useful designs yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator resources like Thingiverse, an online bank of print designs.
Many, if not most, of these designs are small models of household items, toys, or replacement parts for larger appliances or electronics. While printing plates and utensils has some appeal, consumers so far have not rushed to purchase 3D printers on a truly massive scale.
These applications, though, fit into the vision that many have for 3D printing. The potential to, say, print a few extra plates when unexpected guests arrive would be convenient, and these potential applications are attractive to the manufacturing industry.
With 3D printing, it will eventually be possible for a consumer to shop in a physical store to browse for products, then make alterations to yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator product via computer terminal before finally ordering a customized version of that in-store product.
The product would then be printed off-site at a regional manufacturing plant before being shipped direct to the customer. No global transport, no warehousing, no waste material. Information about patents, copyright, and the Creative Commons are becoming increasingly muddled and difficult to tease out, so I want yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator spend a moment explaining some definitions and the contrasts between groups. The biggest lobby yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator source of writing about collaborative intellectual property is the Creative Commons.
User interaction and use of the Creative Commons has been increasing significantly. Commons content is also remarkably diverse. Information can be published into the commons using a variety of Creative Commons licenses. The licenses themselves are multi-layered. First, they act as legal code meant to be a kind of tool. Secondly, that tool is translated into a format readable by individuals without specific legal training. There are six licenses currently available for use. There is a significant variety between the licenses in terms of yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator and user freedom.
The most open, for instance, is an Attribution license, which allows anyone to remix, build upon, sell, or distribute as long as the original author is mentioned. At the other end of the spectrum is the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs, which restricts users to simply downloading and using work. The goal is to allow individuals to publish content on their own terms, and then to allow for that content to be used by others while still maintaining some rights for the original content owner.
Patents are distinct from the Creative Commons. The first is for a process, such as a new way to manufacture an existing substance. The second is for a product the kind of patents I will be discussing in this manuscript. The final is for a plant formed through asexual reproduction. Once issued, patents allow for courts to enforce claims made about the origins of processes, devices, and plants.
Individuals can only be granted a patent from a patent office, as opposed to a CC license, which can be self-determined. If a particular user is not generally interested in profiting from a design or invention, and is more interested in sharing that design, a CC license is the favorable choice. Patents cost money and can take time to file whereas a CC license can be chosen quickly for no cost. The case study presented below involves yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator complicated instance in which material protected under a CC license was patented by a company without regard for the initial CC license.
Contemporary patent law presents a large host of problems for businesses, governments, and content creators. Chief among these are patent trolls. Jennifer Maher provides a great definition:. Smartphone manufacturing firms are increasingly resorting to these trolling tactics in order to sabotage competitors, but smaller firms are using these tactics as well.
Jennifer Maher highlights the moral and ethical dimensions of open source software in Software Evangelism and the Rhetoric of Morality. She explains the genesis of the open software movement involved a moral and ethical decision to produce quality software and distribute it widely Depending on who is doing the arguing, these dimensions of the Commons are often ignored, and ignoring those relationships is often strategic. My case involves the seizure of user-generated designs from several online making communities.
By using CAD computer assisted design software, users can create designs for virtually any kind of product they like and transfer that data to a 3D printer for fabrication. Many users choose to publish their designs to online repositories like Thingiverse. These designs are copyrighted and often published using Creative Commons License. This case specifically involves the taking and patenting of several designs from the Commons by a large company that manufactures 3D printers called MakerBot.
Before continuing, a caveat on the timeline of this case study. This is true mostly due to a kind of yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator interaction cycle between makers and what they make. As 3D printers have decreased in cost, their adoption has increased and resulted in a proliferation of low-cost printers landing in the homes of hobbyists. These printers are often only able to make smaller, uncomplicated objects for personal use as opposed to the more complex printers used in industrial applications.
A yahoo bot maker 2011 makerbot replicator may then, for example, design and print an idea for a spoon.
