May 1 marked (what is probably) the final written phase of the Copyright Office’s 1201 proceeding, a proceeding which includes the petition to allow users to “unlock” their 3D printer in order to print in materials not approved by the printer manufacture.  The original petition is available here, and the original comment in support from while I was at Public Knowledge is available here. After responses in opposition from the 3D printer company Stratasys and the trade group the Intellectual Property Owners Association, the final written round was an opportunity for supporters of the exemption to respond to the opposition. My response is here, and Public Knowledge’s response (written by Sherwin and Raza) is here.

Last week Shapeways announced a partnership with the personal drone company DJI (maker of the Phantom line of drones).  The first part of the partnership is a curated shop of DJI-approved accessories for Phantom drones.  This partnership is exciting on its face (drones + 3D printing is always a fun combination), and it is also interesting as a potentially new kind of model for how existing brands can embrace 3D printing.

While the IP saga of Left Shark lives on, at this point I think we have enough distance to try and determine if there are any larger lessons to be learned from this entire enterprise.  From where we stand today I think it is safe to say that there is at least one.

This post originally appeared on the Make: blog on April 30, 2015.

The Radio Free Culture podcast at the Free Music Archive (which is at the Bergmayer-approved WFMU) let me come on to talk about 3D printing and IP this week.  They also gave me some soap.