Get more details here, I will not distort them with my ignorance

An Epic Journey into the Grey Spectrum of IP, Creative Commons, Moral Rights & 3D Printing

Many of you may now be aware of the recent exchanges that have taken place over the 3D printed Impossible Triangle (Penrose Triangle) first posted on Shapeways on the 9th of Feb.  In a matter of days a sequence of events unfolded that are indicative of the speed that 3D printing community moves when something exciting happens, both good and bad. It has raised serious issues that we need to discuss as a community to ensure the vibrancy and innovation is not crippled by legal interference.

Ulrich Schwanitz first uploaded his item on the 27th of January 2010, which was to be the first ever 3D printed Penrose Triangle. He then received the print on the 9th, took a few simple images and made a mind disturbing video that showed that indeed he had succeeded in making a truly amazing optical mind twister.

We saw his item in the 'It Arrived' forum and reached out to a few of our press connections to share what we thought was a very cool design, the press agreed and sites such as Notcot and Fastco Design posted the item and generated a torrent of interest in the geometric wonder. This led to a bit of conjecture on the internet with a couple of people figuring out a solution including Constantine Zuev and soon after with a 3D model by Artur Tchoukanov where Joris posted the solution on the I.Materialise blog on Feb 16th and Artur also released the 3D model onto Thingiverse.. (but you may not be able to see it right now).

So, the Fastco article gets updated with Artur's CG renders and boingboing posts about Artur's solution on the 17th but unintentionally omitted to mention the 3D item was first realized by Ulrich.  Ulrich is disappointed that his concept solution has been leaked (perhaps a simple "I solved it" would have been enough without releasing the solution as a cad file) and that he was not attributed as the inventor on boingboing. Upon notification that Ulrich designed the original 3D model Cory Doctorow updated his post as soon as he could to rectify the omission.

It does not end here as Ulrich, disappointed at the decision of Artur to render the original design worthless by releasing it into the public domain also sent a take down notice to Thingiverse under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act...

US Congress is getting ready to decide if we will have any Net Neutrality rules at all.  If the proposed bill passes it will not only repeal the FCC's current rules, but also prevent the FCC from making any net neutrality rules in the future.  Without government-backed Net Neutrality rules ISPs will be free to pick and choose which websites work and which websites don't.  

The Internet Strikes Back is a day - February 17th - where we are asking the Internet to call your Representative and tell them how important Net Neutrality is.

Go to www.TheInternetStrikesBack.org to find out more, get a button for your website, and even sign up to participate in advance.  If you sign up in advance, you will get a text message on the 17th that will automatically connect you with your Representative.

What does this have to do with me? I hear you asking.

Once ISP's have the power to throttle or open the network based on content it means they will start demanding money from sites for high speed access and making deals to choke competitors. 

If suddenly a competitor to a web service you use, be it Shapeways, Vimeo or BitTorrent started choking the service it could completely cripple the site, imagine waiting 4 times as long for your content to upload/download?

The barrier to entry for internet start-ups like Kickstarter, Shapeways and Etsy would be raised to the point where many great ideas would never be realized.

Once the proposed bill is passed it can NEVER be turned back!!!!  Click the image below to take action...

This month the highly influential Economist Magazine featured 3D printing on the cover along with three articles within exploring the potential changes in manufacturing and medicine brought about by additive manufacturing.

It is an enormous validation of the direction Shapeways is taking to make 3D printing accessible to all when the Economist recognizes that this is a "... a new manufacturing technology will change the world"

Though 3D printing is not new itself, the ease of access to high quality materials and processes with the lowering of cost is recognized as a chief driving factor in the article that mentions Shapeways as part of the revolutionary force.  The articles also touch on the speed innovation made possible by the quick iterations, the move from large scale factory to distributed micro production, and with that the change in globalization and labor requirements.  Both articles also touch very briefly on the IP complications that are sure to arise with the increased probability of product piracy, but the need not to tighten up legislation to put restrictions that would choke the innovation made possible by the technology.  We will cover these points in greater detail over the coming weeks, but it is worth going over these points now briefly, before we delve in deeper.

With 12 days to go, Matt has exceeded his request of $2,200 with $13,649 already pledged to his project!

Congratulations Matt!!! Who will be next to leverage Shapeways and Kickstarter to realize their ideas?

Let us know when you launch and we will fan the flames of your success!

Powerful web based parametric 3D Modeling tool for 3D Printing being developed by Benjamin Nortier. There is more information on Benjamin's blog but take a look at what looks like a really exciting application that could easily compete with SketchUp for ease of use but with the important difference of parametric modeling and STL output.... NICE...

Open Attribute is a simple add-on (currently available for Firefox & Chrome) that makes it easier to attribute the proper Creative Commons license at the click of an icon on your toolbar..

License attribution is relatively simple, but sometimes people get it wrong. We will be talking about this more in the very near future, and will be implementing functionality to give you the option to apply creative commons licenses to any files you make available for download on Shapeways. Until then, take a look at Open Attribute to help you ensure you do not inadvertently step on anyone's digital toes.

"That’s why we’re building Open Attribute, a suite of tools that makes it ridiculously simple for anyone to copy and paste the correct attribution for any CC licensed work. These tools will query the metadata around a CC-licensed object and produce a properly formatted attribution that users can copy and paste wherever they need to.

Open Attribute is at the early stages and it looks like they will be broadening their range off tools, it would be great to see them include the option to add the icon for the license used along with the attribution and location.  I did do a quick test and picked up a glitch where the attribution referenced the wrong URL, also it did not pick up the license out of Flickr even though they use it as an example.

Open Attribute / CC BY 3.0