Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
12
Ownership, safety,
and new legal
frontiers
Law can be one person's protection and another person's hindrance.
Especially in laws that attempt to define philosophical issues such as safety
or ownership. I experienced this irst-hand while teaching a special summer
seminar for high school students interested in design and engineering. The
week-long curriculum taught product design principles using simple design
software and our lab's 3D printer. The plan was that each student would design
a product, name it, describe its commercial value and inally, post it for sale
on Shapeways.
At the end of the week, students had created a rich variety of product designs.
On the last day of class, I demonstrated the inal step: Each student would upload
their product design ile to Shapeways where it would be sold online.
One student, who at the start of class had cheerfully showed his friend how
to jailbreak his iPhone so he could download free music, indignantly raised
his hand: “But if I upload my product design ile onto the Internet, what if
somebody just downloads it and makes a bunch of free copies without paying
me for them?”
Another student said that maybe she shouldn't upload her product design
after all. She wasn't sure whether the ornate iPhone holder for bicycle handle-
bars was secure enough to prevent someone's phone from slipping and shat-
tering on the street. Another student explained that he didn't care so much
if someone used the iles for the 3D printed puzzle he had designed. What
would really bother him, he explained, would be if someone took his design
and then claimed credit for it.
It took this class of high school students just a few minutes to express the
legal challenges that lie ahead. Like the computing industry a few decades
ago, the marketplace surrounding 3D printers and related services is still in its
infancy. It's an open frontier, a relatively unpopulated space whose commercial
