After the hearing, the Copyright Office submitted an additional question about unlocking 3D printing.  The question was:

One of the most exciting things about widespread access to 3D printing is how it has started to push cultural institutions to begin digitizing their 3D collections.  Now, in addition to being able to see free high quality 2D scans of paintings like a 15th Century Italian Pentecost  and 18th Century Japanese Woodcuts, you can see (and sometimes download, print, and modify) high quality 3D scans of the Cooper Hewitt Mansion, Abraham Lincoln’s face,  and Musette the Maltese Dog.  With objects reaching back thousands of years scattered across cultural institutions around the world, it isn’t hard to imagine a future where the world’s cultural heritage objects are available to anyone with a 3D printer (or, say, a Shapeways account).

Podcast -Your Rights and 3D, A conversation with Shapeways about IP

Bridgette Mongeon had me on to talk about 3D printing and IP from a designer’s perspective.  It was interesting (for me) to get into the kinds of concerns that professional sculptors have with services like Shapeways in terms of security and accessibility of support.

Today was the last public step in the 3D printing unlocking proceeding (some background here).  Essentially, this is about allowing people who own 3D printers to use whatever their material they want in their printer.  Since some manufacturers use chip-and-software-based verification to lock printers to material coming from them, the entire process was happening as part of the triennial “1201 process,” so named for 17 USC 1201 that authorizes it.

Today the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is launching a challenge initiative to help improve prosthetics and assistive technologies.  As part of the Innovation Creation Series Challenge, the VA is pushing for rapid innovation around the development of personalized technologies to improve care and quality of life for Veterans.  Of course, when you hear personalization and innovation you know 3D printing can’t be far behind.