One of my favourite sci-fi books is called The Diamond Age by Neal Stevenson. I like it because it's about what books might become. And I like it because the author imagines a world where anyone can make anything and our entire economic model, based ultimately on finite resources, is thus made irrelevant. In the book, people can make simple things in their homes, or they can go to a larger 'fab' and make bigger things. Both at home and in public the technology imagined is basically a 3D printer.
I was never quite sure where the raw materials came from - I probably need to go back and take another look - but the notion of making your own stuff is pretty beguiling. Additive manufacturing - starting with nothing and building tangible things layer by layer is nothing new. 3D printers have been around for a while; CES 2012 was full of them. But everyone's favourite file-sharing site, PirateBay, has just brought Neal Stevenson's vision one step closer.
We've been able to download pirated content - games, music, movies, software, even books - for a while. But I bet Sigma, the camera lens maker, never thought this would happen:
This is an image from a torrent link on Pirate Bay for a 3D render of a camera lens. I could download it, and if I had a 3D printer at home, running the right software, I could make it. Sigma would never even know.
It's not actually as bad as it looks. The seeder makes it clear that his CAD file is for a model of a camera lens, not the real thing. But it's a small step from the model of a lens to the individual components of a lens and the instructions needed to put it together.
With enough time and ingenuity we can reverse-engineer anything. We can figure out what we need to print, and in what material, to create our own shoes. Or car part. What PirateBay have opened up is the possibility that the shoes might be Vivienne Westwood or the car part an 'original' VW part.
Suddenly, a whole bunch of people in businesses that make physical stuff and therefore thought they were safe from the disruptive effects of digital technology might be sleeping a little less easily...
Totally. Reverse engineering is bad for business ( www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9024247/Billion-pound-Dysons-new-Ball-models-face-Chinese-threat.html ) but 3D printing takes digital copyright to a weird place that we're not ready for.
The Royal Mail should be worried too.
Posted by: Mr.S | February 1, 2012 at 09:48 AM