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3D printing an ethics

9K views 29 replies 16 participants last post by  saxmanjack 
#1 ·
Not wanting to derail another thread on 3D printing, I thought I'd pose this separately. It's probably safe to assume that 3D will become pretty accessible in the coming years. And it's tolerances pretty tolerable. It would also be safe to assume that people will share digital versions of products for others to use. So a printable 3D image of a hand made DG or a double ring link might be not so far fetched. And I would think the copyright owner has about as much of a chance of stopping that as the music and film industry does of stopping it's piracy. So where does that leave us?
 
#2 ·
In the end, piracy is going to a end up at a whole new level. It's just going to happen. Like you mentioned with music and film, they'll try to protect copyrights and patents, but when everyone has a 3D printer in their home and blueprints are downloadable and plentiful, we all know where it's headed.

I have a 3D printed mouthpiece. They still have to be faced by hand (for now), but it sounds great. I'm not a music / video downloader (too many personal musician friends I feel I'd be ripping off), but what if I thought a mouthpiece someone else designed was "the cat's meow" and I wanted to share it with my friends here at SOTW? A private email, and it's done.
 
#4 ·
I have a 3D printed mouthpiece. They still have to be faced by hand (for now), but it sounds great. I'm not a music / video downloader (too many personal musician friends I feel I'd be ripping off), but what if I thought a mouthpiece someone else designed was "the cat's meow" and I wanted to share it with my friends here at SOTW? A private email, and it's done.
That scenario leads to an interesting discussion on the ethics of it all (beyond just 3d printing, even). Let's say I have a great mouthpiece I really love, and my friend wants to try it for a couple weeks. Instead of loaning him mine, what if I 3d printed a copy (assuming the tech allows for very close copies at this time) so he could try it for a while? Is that wrong? What if he loves it as well then goes and buys one? Was it still wrong? What if he bought one from a retailer then returned it after a week or two? What's the difference in the end for the mouthpiece maker?

It's all an interesting discussion on what is ethical and what isn't, and while we're all going to have different answers I think we're entering a time where our views on certain goods and products will change considerably. This may be good it may be bad...we should remember that 1000 years ago the accepted ethical norm was vastly different then it is now.
 
#3 ·
I'm withholding my opinions on 3d printer ethics until they are mainstream, and we see what people can actually do with them. At this point in time, they're about as accessible and affordable as a CNC mill (yes you can buy small ones for relatively little money). I'm really not sure where CNC machines currently stand in terms of sharing digital files with others, from my little experience in machine shops there doesn't seem to be much of it, even those who use them as a hobby in their basement.

I think once they are significantly more affordable and easier to use that may become an issue...but I bet the average person knows very little about 3d modeling and actually making a usable product with their machine.

Let's just assume it's super accessible and very easy to use for this. In such a case, it will probably be very much like other digital media and it will be shared considerably. The leaves us in basically the same spot as music. As an artist, make your music as accessible as possible, and you'll likely maximize your profits. People will always abuse the system, there's not much to do about it other then embrace it as a fact of life and use it to your best potential. Legislation won't fix those issues...
 
#6 ·
To hell with 3d printers. I want a replicator.

One of the things that will invariably happen is that shops will open up to charge for use. You will be able to walk in and pay for your copy...a 3D Kinko's. Watch and see. It's gonna be a mess.

Pretty soon we will all be obsolete, many of us are but we don't know it yet.
 
#7 ·
Pretty soon we will all be obsolete, many of us are but we don't know it yet.
On the other hand, it could be a boon for you craftsmen. There's is incredible variability in quality of even 2D printers. Maybe when you can go to "Kinkos 3D" and get that "classic" vintage piece, that may or may not suck, your skills will be even more valuable because of your reliability.
 
#10 ·
They can 3D print guns and you're worried about copyright on a mouthpiece, (which doesn't even exist!) ???

Is it worth mentioning the Chinese already copying Selmer, Lawton and Link mouthpieces? Of course they aren't as good because the insides are different. They are also copying Selmer saxophones and Yamahas ... and everything else they can sell.
 
#20 ·
This is so true and I've seen copies of the Links from China but nothing I've seen from there is any good except Apple stuff. China has pretty much put the US out of business so the only thing left that we make is weapons and in order to keep making them we have to run out of them so we have to make war in order to stay in business.

But we do it from within too. Do any of you folks realize how many times my mouthpieces have been copied by guys right here in the US? Two guys have done very well with them too. And what I don't understand is that sax players flock to new mouthpiece makers and "techs" with little to no experience instead of sticking with experienced guys. I don't get that at all. Berg Larson and Lawton have both gone out of business just because they became old and because these new fly by night companies came along. In the end it's us that screws ourselves by buying these products. Either I'm getting old or I'm getting smarter, maybe both. Phil Barone
 
#18 ·
Woody--I think you are right......and I think that the analogy you draw to what's happened in the music industry is pretty right on as well.

It will be very tough to enforce most copryright/design/intellectual property in the very near future. The technologies involved are moving ahead extremely fast, and will more than likely continue to accelerate. A person can already get a desktop laser scanner, and a budget 3D printer for around $5K. Those tools coupled with a little bit of software knowledge and some mechanical/spatial thinking aptitude are enough to go pretty far.

As a person who earns their living working with design software and writing programs for CNC machines to make mouthpieces, I am extremely interested in this issue. The knowledge and experience that we have gained over the years helping with the design and machining mouthpieces has definitely been hard fought for and earned. The inevitability of someone being able to just about snag something out of thin air that I've devoted lots of hard work to is definitely kind of a bummer.

I really am not sure what the manufacturing world in general will look like 10 or 15 years from now, but I can guarantee it will be a LOT different than we see today. The only way I can see to be successful in the long term is to continue to be innovative, offer superior customer service, and to maintain extremely high quality.

On the positive side......I am encouraged to see the growing community of collaborative inventors and designers having better access to this technology (much like the advent of digital recording being made more available to the public). There is a whole group of folks creating and designing things and posting their designs for the rest of the community to use as open source---Here's one of those sites: http://www.thingiverse.com/ ........granted there is a lot of silliness and a whole lot of Iphone covers here, but it's growing to have quite a few little useful widgets and designs.

Here is a cool story that makes the optimist in me think that movement in this direction is a good thing. A designer/sculptor here in Washington state and an engineer in South Africa have collaborated to design and make an affordable 3D prosthetic hand. The idea is to make a functional and affordable prosthetic that works---for a few hundred dollars instead of thousands. A five year old boy in South Africa was able to receive a functioning prosthetic hand that his family would not be able to afford otherwise.


I don't know what the future holds---but it will be interesting :)
 
#21 ·
That's how it works everywhere. In the gun industry (which I am a part of) it is exactly the same. Someone comes out with an innovative product, and the next day there are three new companies offering the exact same thing. Hell, half the time some company puts out a copy before the real thing is publicly available. Try finding quality automotive parts...it's getting more and more difficult to find good parts, and there's a ton of copies of the good stuff, so half the time you're not even sure if what you got is the real thing.

The only way to change it is to change the public's view on what they want to buy. Right now it's based largely on price and "cool factor". I doubt you'll get that to change anytime soon...we reap what we sow, but we (as a society) are too blind to see what we're planting.
 
#22 ·
You wouldn't believe some of the stuff that I could tell you but it's too unbelievable so I stopped repeating it because I started to realize that I came across as being crazy, bitter and unstable which I may be but I don't want to seem more crazy than I am. One endorser of a product that's very popular on here was a good friend of mine but he wouldn't associate himself with me because of political reasons but my products are hands down better than the stuff he endorses and I know that the guy copied me. And I'll admit that I copied stuff but they didn't make the stuff that I copied anymore. I never copied anything that was still being made and there's a big difference. Phil Barone
 
#28 ·
3D printing of metal will probably always be limited to the industrial market. The accuracy necessary isn't ever going to be cheap, nor are some of the components (e.g. high powered electron beams). In short, I don't think this technology changes the problem. As others have noted, it's already an issue for some, any product popular enough to be counterfeited will be. The only reason we don't see more counterfeit mouthpieces is because the market is so small.

Widespread use of plastic 3d printing will affect other products much more than ours. All the little plastic things around your house that are injection molded in china you'll be able to download and print instead. But ABS extrusion may never be accurate enough (nor ABS hard enough) for what we're talking about (a mouthpiece that needs no facing work), and sintering (even with plastics) may always be too expensive for household use (extreme accuracy will never be cheap). So yeah, it's exciting and interesting technology which will change some things a great deal -- it will change our little niche less than others.
 
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