[MUSIC PLAYING]
So for this episode
of "Idea Channel,"
we're going to be talking
about 3D printing and all
of the challenges that
3D printing is bringing
to intellectual property.
And to do that, we're going to
talk with my friend, Michael
Weinberg from Shapeways
which is a-- well,
I'll let you describe yourself
and what Shapeways does.
So Shapeways is a 3D printing
company, but what we do
is not manufacture
3D printers, but we
have these big industrial
3D printers in a factory.
And so if you want access
to that 3-D printer,
you just design
something, you upload it,
and we can print it
and send it to you.
Or you can design something
and upload it and open a shop,
and we'll print on demand
for any customer who
wants to buy from you, and
we'll just send you a markup.
And you are their-- I don't
want to mess up your title.
[LAUGHS]
I'm a general counsel.
General counsel.
I'm the only
lawyer at Shapeways.
OK.
So I worry about
all the legal stuff,
but I spend a lot
of time thinking
about intellectual property
law and the rules that
govern our community
to make sure
that everyone can
know what to expect
when they're using 3D printers.
And just to get
this out of the way
so that we've been very
specific and above board,
have we paid you or
Shapeways anything?
You have not.
Has Shapeways paid us anything?
We have not.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I think before we get
really into the weeds talking
about how 3D printing is
sort of breaking copyright
and intellectual property,
maybe we should just
cover the ground
work of what exactly
it is-- 3-D printing
is and does.
So 3D printing is
a technology that
lets you take a digital file and
turn it into a physical thing.
And it cuts the object up
into super thin layers,
and then there's a
machine, the 3D printer,
that builds that object
up one layer at a time.
And it can use all
sorts of technology
to do that, and all
sorts of materials.
But the core idea is instead
of having a block of something
and cutting away until you
have the object you want,
which is traditional
manufacturing,
with 3-D printing, you just
build it up from nothing.
And so you just have layer
and layer and layer and layer
until you have that one object.
Is every 3-D
printer an extruder?
You're always-- you're
extruding something.
Not every 3D printer.
OK.
And so most of the 3D printers
that we have at the factory
are not those types
of 3D printers.
MIKE RUGNETTA: OK.
MICHAEL WEINBERG:
So those printers
are the ones that you know if
you've seen them on desktops
and things like that.
The way that ours
usually work are
sometimes there is
a bed of powder,
and then it kind of
does powder and then
a little bit of glue
that is specifically
designed to be in a place.
There are also machines
that use a laser
or some sort of light source.
Immediately--
immediately on board.
Laser 3D printer, what?
That basically
they either use it
to melt-- if you have
a bed of metal filings
and you shoot a laser at
the metal filings to center
them, to turn them
into a solid piece.
But all of them at
their core, they're
thinking about building a
layer, moving up a little bit,
and building a slightly
differently shaped layer
until you form an
object that has
all sorts of
physical properties.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I think this brings us
now to the last thing
that I want to touch on
really briefly before we
get into the intellectual
property weeds, which
is 3D printing community.
It is an incredible
community of people
that are-- it's growing and
becoming more and more diverse
every day.
But you've got one
group of people
who are attracted to 3D printing
from a kind of engineering,
tinkering, hacking
standpoint, where they just
think it's a really neat
engineering challenge.
They're really interested
in the machines
and how to make
the machines work,
and how to design
functional things that they
need every day.
Right.
MICHAEL WEINBERG:
So they're kind
of-- the engineering-oriented
people are coming in,
and that's a huge vein of
people in that community
And the other side are a
bunch of designers who say,
I've had all these
things in my head
that I have had no way to
bring into the real world,
and this is how
I'm going to do it.
And this is-- so I'm going
to use this technology
to make that happen.
I think there's a bunch
of other pods of people.
There are educators
who really see
this as a way of bringing
kids in through various means.
They say, oh, we'll
teach you design.
We'll teach you math.
We'll teach you engineering.
And there is the
physical component,
it's not just on a screen.
And then there's
a little universe
of lawyers who are
attracted to it
for interesting reasons of just
sort of legal policy issues.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We have this
community of people
that are hacking on both the
technology and the objects
themselves.
That then pushes
up against the law
that has existed for so long
to control those things.
From what I understand,
it's complicated to know
what objects or what kind
of object is protected?
Is that true?
Like, it's--
Yeah.
It seems like it's on
a case by case basis.
I hope it's not ultimately
a case by case basis,
but I think that's
exactly the first problem.
For most-- for your average
person who's doing 3D printing
and is thinking about
intellectual property,
they learn about
intellectual property
through the internet
were you're thinking
about the music and the movies
and the photographs and all
those things.
And so if you're
trying to figure out,
am I infringing on a song,
am I infringing on a movie,
am I infringing on a blog
post, your starting point
is it's protected by copyright.
I'm going to do a
copyright analysis.
The easy kind of
shorthand you can use
is if it's a
functional object, it's
outside the scope of copyright.
If it's a nonfunctional--
if it's a decorative object,
if it's a sculpture, it's
within the world of copyright.
And so your first
rule of thumb is
that functional nonfunctional.
What are some examples
of functional objects?
So a hinge--
MIKE RUGNETTA: OK.
MICHAEL WEINBERG: --or
a handle for a door,
or a piece to hold a
shower curtain in place.
MIKE RUGNETTA: OK.
Things that basically if
you're an engineer designing
something, you're probably
designing a functional part.
MIKE RUGNETTA: OK.
MICHAEL WEINBERG: If it has
functional pieces that-- you
know, the tolerance is matter.
It's going to perform
something you want to perform.
That's-- you're in
functional land.
You're probably largely outside
of the scope of copyright.
With 3D printing, there
are lots of objects
that are protected by copyright
because they're nonfunctional,
creative works.
But there are also
a lot of objects
that are functional works
that are categorically
excluded from
copyright protection
because they're
functional works.
And so they may be
protected by a patent.
They may be protected
by trademark.
But instead of
the first question
you have to ask yourself is, is
this infringement on copyright,
the first question you have to
ask yourself backs up a step
and says, what if anything
protects this work?
Is it protected by copyright?
Is it protected by trademark?
Is it protected by patent?
Because the answer
to that question
governs the whole
rest of the show.
And that question is
not as easy to answer
as you might want to be.
And that's, I think, one of
the big challenges for people
is it's requiring them to know
even more law than you already
have to know when you're
thinking about copyright stuff,
which is already a lot of law.
That's a lot of law.
And so what is the
likelihood that someone
is going to print
something that infringes
on a patent of a
functional object?
So that's where it
gets complicated again.
I apologize.
So with copyright, with
things in the copyright world,
copyright protection
is automatic.
Yeah.
If you are categorically
eligible for copyright
protection, your thing is
protected by copyright.
If you're in the
functional world
and you are categorically
eligible for a patent,
that doesn't mean
you have a patent.
You still need to go and get it.
And so the question isn't
even what is the likelihood
that someone's going to print
something that's functional
because it could
infringe on a patent,
the question is if
they're going to print
a functional thing that is
also protected by patent.
And that's a smaller universe
then copyrightable thing
that's protected by copyright,
because that universe is
sort of a one-to-one mapping.
Right.
You know-- if it's a creative
thing, you know it's covered.
Right.
Right.
And so I think the
likelihood that you're
going to infringe on a
patent is much smaller,
because the number of things
in the world that are protected
by patent is much smaller
than the number of things
in the world that are
protected by copyright.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
One thing I've heard,
and I don't know-- I
think this was from
a specific person,
so I regret not
knowing who it is.
They said that 3D
printing is going
to do for objects what
mp3s did for music.
There are many people who
have said things like, OK, when
I say it's going to be
like the MP3 of objects,
I mean piracy everywhere.
The world's going to fall apart.
MIKE RUGNETTA: Right.
Yeah.
This is going to be
horrible, and the question
is sort of what do you do?
When the music industry
was hit by MP3's, there
was no shared
commercial experience
as to what to do
in that situation.
They responded to MP3's
basically in three stages,
right?
Their first stage was
sue all your customers,
which alienated a whole
generation of people.
Didn't stop the internet--
Yeah.
 --and wasn't very effective.
And their next stage
was build these really
elaborate digital locks.
Yeah.
And--
All of which got broken.
All of which got broken.
None of which really
achieved any useful purpose,
but it cost them a lot of
money and alienated a bunch
of people who were left.
So they went through
two stages where
it was very expensive
and very costly in terms
of customer relations, but
not very productive for them.
And then they finally kind
of moved to this third stage
where they said
to themselves, OK,
there's clearly a demand for
this stuff, for digital music,
so let's spend some time
and money finding a way
to bring that market to people.
The lesson kind of over and
over is you approach it as, OK,
how do we meet this market?
That's the more
effective way to do it.
So I read-- and I'll put a link
to this in the description--
I read a paper where
someone was suggesting
essentially content
ID for objects,
for 3D printers, where when you
send your object file to the 3D
printer to print, it checks
a global database of objects
to find out whether or not
it infringes in any way.
MICHAEL WEINBERG: Yeah.
MIKE RUGNETTA: So
that's just one way--
Yeah, I mean
these are-- there's
a whole universe of kind
of cockamamie schemes
that people have of
protecting things.
Yeah, where there's a
whitelist or a blacklist
built into the printer, or
there are certain things
that printers will
and will not print,
or files are verified as
legitimate before they're
printed out by printers.
MIKE RUGNETTA: It goes through
some authority or something?
MICHAEL WEINBERG: Yeah,
and I think all of these
fail the same reason
that a lot of DRM fails,
which is if it's not bringing
value to the end customer,
they have no interest
in maintaining it.
You're either going to avoid it
or figure out a way through it.
Yeah, it so it
kind of-- it doesn't
get in the way of people
who want to circumvent it,
but it gets in the
way of those edge
cases which may be
significant of people
who are doing something
that's legitimate,
but just wasn't thought
up by the person who
constructed the DRM structure.
There is a version
of verification
that actually could
be really valuable
MIKE RUGNETTA: OK.
Where if you are someone
who wants a physical object
or wants to download a file to
print your own physical object,
and you want to
know that you trust
the source of the object--
this is an example
that's been said to me before.
I think it makes
a lot of sense--
is if you're a pilot
of a small plane,
and you land at a random
airfield somewhere
and something is broken,
something that you need to get
a piece for to be
able to fly again,
and it turns out you
can 3D print the part--
if you're at a random airfield,
you want to know that the file
came from--
Like 1,000%.
MICHAEL WEINBERG: --the people
who made-- who made your plane.
That the printer that
you used for the file
was capable of
printing that object,
that it was
calibrated correctly,
and that it actually
came out of that printer
when the guy who you don't
know hands it to you.
MIKE RUGNETTA: Yeah.
And so as an end user looking
at that object or as any way--
any further up that
chain, either you
want tools that can verify
the source of that object.
You know, when you're
installing packages
on a computer or something, you
have checksums that make sure
that it's a verified--
MICHAEL WEINBERG: Exactly.
Yeah, it's very similar--
Exactly.
That kind of digital
verification I
can see becoming
really valuable.
Yeah, which is-- it's not--
again, not like you said--
it's not DRM, it's more
verification, which is--
Right.
 --great creating value fo--
I mean, even for
artists, right?
I mean, so there are artists
who want to put things out,
and it's a limited run and maybe
they'll build those checksums
into the objects.
That's not going to
prevent somebody else
from knocking off the object.
But if you're a collector and
the-- part of the value you get
from it is to know
that that is--
MIKE RUGNETTA: Certificate
of authenticity.
MICHAEL WEINBERG: --is real,
then you really care about that
and that can be really valuable.
So that's the kind of
digital verification
that I think is useful,
as opposed to this,
we're going to stop people
from printing various things.
We're going to melt down RFID
chips into the plastic that
gets extruded.
Right.
Has to pass through all--
Microdots.
Microdots.
[LAUGHS]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
A lot of this
conversation has been
about the potential questions
that arise and sometimes
the crisis, and
all of these sort
of-- trying to figure out this
thing while we're doing it.
It's like building the car
while you're driving it.
In the future, like, what
are the things that members
of these communities
and even, you know,
interested parties like myself,
who might not have a 3-D
printer but, you know, I still
look at-- I still look at--
You have the internet, right?
Yeah.
Like what are things--
like what is-- what
should be on our checklist?
There are a lot of
open legal issues
that are not completely clear.
And when those issues get
brought before a judge,
one of the questions a
judge is going to ask
is, what is the norm
in the community?
What's going on
with the community?
And so it's really
important right now
that the community consciously
or not consciously--
the norms that they're
setting is what's OK,
what's not OK, what
works, what doesn't work.
That's what is
the starting point
for all the policy and legal
decisions that come after it.
So there's a huge
burden on the community.
I think it's a responsibility,
but it's a responsibility
that I hope that the
community is embracing
to say the decisions
we make today
are going to impact all of the
law and policy that comes out
of it.
And so this is the time to
be conscientious about what
is-- what we think
should be OK and not OK,
and how this should work.
I feel like a recent one was a
manufacturer trying to make it
so that you can only use their
plastic in their machine was
sort of one of those
moments of, oh, God,
now we have to deal with this.
Yeah, there have
been times where
there are manufacturers
who are kind
of tying plastic to machines.
There was an instance
on Thingiverse
a couple months
ago where somebody
downloaded a bunch
of files and started
selling the-- the prints on
eBay in a way that made people
really uncomfortable, and
the process to resolve
that was contentious.
But I think ultimately
it really did
highlight the norms and
expectations in the community,
and it was valuable
in the long term,
even though it was a
bit of a bumpy ride--
MICHAEL WEINBERG: Right
 --in the short term.
Well, thank you so much,
Michael, for coming.
Thanks for having me.
And for taking us around
the Shapeways factory.
Absolutely.
You can find Michael
on Twitter @MWeinberg2d.
Two dimensional media.
Two dimensional media.
2D.
And we'll put some links
to some of the other things
that he's written and places
that he's been on the internet
in the Doobly Doo.
So let's high five.
Yes.
Let us know your
thoughts, ideas,
and especially your
questions about 3D printing
and copyright in
the comments below,
and I will respond
to some of them
in next week's comment
response video.
If there are any really
good questions, which
I'm sure there are
going to be tons,
I'm going to see if
I can swindle Michael
into answering some of them.
Michael, if you're seeing
this for the first time,
thanks in advance.
In this week's comment
response video,
we talk about your thoughts
regarding the difference
between the past and history.
If you want to watch that
one, you can click right here
or find a link in
the Doobly Doo.
Also some very exciting
news this week,
the second Idea Channel
shirt is now available.
The illustration was
done by our good friend
Andrea, who did the illustration
for the light bulb t-shirt.
And it is available
today on dftba.com,
so we'll put a card and
a link in the description
if you want to buy a t-shirt.
In case you missed it, I was in
an episode of the Mental Floss
"List Show" talking about
New York City, the city
that I live in.
If you want to watch that,
we'll also put links around.
This week's tweets
of the week come
from Terrible SFV who points
us towards the Ukraine's
entry for Eurovision this year,
which is rightfully so and very
interestingly political.
And TJ Von Pea, who points us
towards a piece on brutalism,
like from architecture,
in web design.
I don't think I agree with
100% of the statements made
in the piece, but
it is, I think,
an interesting way to look
at design and architecture
and the internets.
We have a Facebook, an
IRC, and a subreddit.
Links in the Doobly Doo.
And of course,
this week's episode
would not have been
possible or good
without the hard work of
these very functional objects.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
