This article first appeared in Techdirt on April 28, 2015.

Many of you will likely remember that shortly after the Super Bowl there was a bit of a thing here on Shapeways in connection with a model of Left Shark.  To briefly review and condense the timeline: person awkwardly dancing inside shark costume during the halftime show rockets to internet fame.  Designer Fernando Sosa creates 3D model of the newly christened “Left Shark” and starts selling it on Shapeways.  Katy Perry’s lawyers send Shapeways a nastygram asserting rights in Left Shark.  Fernando Sosa responds, questioning if Katy Perry has any rights in Left Shark at all.  Left Shark makes its triumphant return to Shapeways.  (In a B story that foreshadows today’s news, Katy Perry then uses Sosa’s Left Shark as part of her trademark application).

Hi Shapeways!  I’m excited to be joining the team as the new IP and General Counsel around here.  3D printing is obviously amazing for all sorts of reasons, and one of those is how it gives people an opportunity to rethink their relationship to intellectual property law.  3D printed objects and files do not fit as neatly into intellectual property law as things like music and movies.  This gives the 3D printing community a chance to redefine the relationship between creativity, creation, and intellectual property law (among so many other things).  Law certainly has an important role, but a healthy community does not rely on law alone in order to thrive.

For the past few years, I’ve been working on public interest technology policy at Public Knowledge.  While there, I wrote a few whitepapers on 3D printing and intellectual property law: : It Will Be Awesome if They Don’t Screw It Up, What’s The Deal with Copyright and 3D Printing, 3 Steps for Licensing Your 3D Printed Stuff.  I also helped to organize 3D/DC, an annual 3D printing policy conference in Washington, DC.

Reihan Salam’s piece on hospitals over in Slate last week felt strangely familiar.  The piece, titled “Hospitals Are Robbing Us Blind” was ostensibly about how hospitals are gouging everyone on medical services.  He described a market with limited competition made up of politically powerful incumbents.  Competition has been reduced by a slew of regional mergers, further consolidating the players.  Although Salam details a number of hospital-specific problems, he concludes that there are essentially two solutions to this problem: recognize that hospitals often have near monopolies and regulate them as such, or use antitrust law in the short term and reduced barriers to entry in the long term to increase competition.

Today is my last day at Public Knowledge.  I started at PK as an intern over seven years ago and, though a series of lucky breaks, have pretty much worked there ever since.  I am, and will continue to be, profoundly grateful for every opportunity that PK has ever afforded me.