
Nathan Myhrvold's Cunning Plan to Prevent 3-D Printer Piracy - rdp
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429566/nathan-myhrvolds-cunning-plan-to-prevent-3-d/
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jerf
And now the circle is closed. After decades of patenting "Physical idea X,
_but on a computer_!", we are now patenting "Computer idea X, _but in the
physical world_!"

Seriously, the idea that "Hey, let's apply DRM to files describing physical
goods" is absurd, even on patent law's own terms. DRM is just DRM, it doesn't
particularly care what's in the file being DRM'ed. This patent should be
denied on obviousness grounds.

~~~
wlesieutre
It's barely even different from the digital situation. This is basically
taking HDCP and saying "Instead of pictures on a TV, now it's 3d shapes on a
printer." Both are digital output devices, one of them just lasts longer than
the other.

Plus we already have printing prevention on physical 2D printers, but it's
only used to stop paper currency counterfeiting, instead of being for private
parties. Never tried it myself, but my understanding is that printers will cut
it off and give you a link to <http://www.rulesforuse.com> instead.

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noonespecial
So who's going to cost the economy more in the next 30 years or so, Myhrvold
and co. or terrorists?

Seriously, I do hope "cunning" is being used ironically here. There is
absolutely zero cunning involved in "DRM, but for 3d printers!"

~~~
dlss
1\. I think there is something very cunning about a plan to force people to
pay royalties on the method of collecting their royalties

2\. If they set the price high enough (which they will for the same reason
that music prices are so high), then this is the best possible outcome for the
future of 3d printers

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s_tec
Look at the bright side. Anyone who wants to create consumer-unfriendly DRM-
protected CAD files now needs to jump through hoops and pay fees to Myhrvold's
company. With any luck, this patent will actually _reduce_ the incentive to
apply DRM protection to 3D manufacturing.

~~~
dllthomas
It will probably reduce the incentive; it may increase the ability. We'll find
out which effect dominates.

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confluence
Sorry for asking so bluntly but: Can someone explain to me what exactly makes
Myhrvold such a dick?

I mean he's already rich - and unlike some lawyers put under the pump to do
evil things he has absolutely no reason to do so.

~~~
redthrowaway
He clearly wouldn't describe himself as such, and would see himself as the
good guy.

Assholes never think of themselves as assholes. If they're assholes in a
socially acceptable manner, then they see themselves as simply following the
crowd. If they're assholes in a legally acceptable manner, they see themselves
as hacking the system. If they're assholes in a manner most people detest,
they may either not care, or see themselves as crusaders bringing truth to the
unwashed masses.

Myhrvold is an asshole in all three senses. He's a patent troll who games the
system; he brings harm to everyone by "protecting business interests", and he
likely sees himself as a crusader against the evils of copyright infringement
perpetrated by those who are too ignorant to know better.

In short, he's a grade A asshole, but he likely views himself as unjustly
persecuted and justified in his actions.

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duskwuff
Patented? Good! Now nobody will implement it.

Seriously, I can't see anyone in the Maker crowd endorsing this plan, which
pretty much kills it.

~~~
waterlesscloud
The Maker crowd won't be the ones making mass-market versions of these devices
though.

~~~
tomjen3
Considering how fast iPhones are jailbroken, breaking the DRM won't take much
time.

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ajenner
As well as the problems mentioned in other comments, this idea suffers from a
massive "analog hole" just as with audio. If you can print an object, it would
be extremely easy to sample the pulses sent to the stepper motors and run a
"virtual 3D printer" algorithm on those waveforms to turn it back into an
unencrypted 3D model suitable for unlimited printing on any printer. The only
way around this would be to forbid 3D printers from printing unsigned objects,
and forbid people from making their own (unencumbered) 3D printers. Given how
many people have made their own repraps, that's already a non-starter.

~~~
nooneelse
The DRM could embed something analogous to a watermark in unseen parts/layers
of the physical structure printed, like in the particular path used to fill in
some layers. A recording of the stepper motor commands would still have that
information encoded in it.

~~~
duskwuff
If someone came up with a specific method of embedding a physical watermark in
infills which was easily detectable via nondestructive methods (i.e, without
sawing the object in half -- perhaps something that would leave a pattern on
X-ray or ultrasound?), but which didn't significantly affect the model's
density, that would be nifty and likely patent-worthy. (In the best possible
way: it'd necessarily be innovative, and would only cover the specific method
described.)

The method described in the patent, on the other hand, is largely uninnovative
-- it simply describes a "phone-home" licensing scheme. It doesn't even appear
to describe the "object code" as being encrypted, which would make it rather
trivial to bypass.

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humdumb
The "threat" of 3D printing is not piracy it's prototypes. Potentially anyone
can make a prototype, find a manufacturer in Asia and start a business. In
other words, it spreads the power of creativity to more people. Patent trolls,
the parasites that they are, want to piggyback on others' creativity.

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mullingitover
If you find yourself in the dystopian future where this is built into your $99
Best Buy 3D printer, just use your printer to make a _new_ printer that's not
DRM-encumbered.

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adaml_623
I'm not a patent lawyer but does the fact that Neil Stephenson basically
described the same thing in The Diamond age in anyway affect the validity of
the patent?

~~~
saurik
I am not a lawyer at all, but people were asking the same question with
regards to features from the iPhone and the movie Minority Report, and someone
(who may have not even been a person: probably they were a dog) said that
fictional representations do not count: you must have concrete and operational
implementations (even though the actual thing you are discussing is just a
relatively simple idea; one so simple, you might have gotten it while watching
a movie or reading a book published years earlier).

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pbharrin
This article title is totally incorrect it misses a layer of logic. A better
title would be: "Nathan Myhrvold's Cunning Plan to get royalties from 3D
printer DRM software". Nathan Myhrvold was issued a patent on 3D printer DRM
software, good it will put a barrier in place for anyone wishing to make DRM
software which fights piracy, so actually Nathan Myhrvold is helping 3D
printer piracy.

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shriphani
This patent is extremely technically weak. I have seen more interesting
approaches to copy-protecting 3D-printed objects:

<http://www.cs.purdue.edu/cgvlab/papers/aliaga/eg2009.pdf>

(One of the authors on that paper was my advisor in college).

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Tichy
How can this get a patent, isn't every other DRM scheme already prior art? It
seems irrelevant that the files are to be used to print some real world
objects.

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jrockway
"It's like all previous DRM schemes, but this time it will work!"

Uh huh.

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jsilence
I read "Now Intellectual Vultures...", realized my reading mistake and stopped
reading the article. Somehow felt like I grasped the essence.

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grecy
Uh-Huh. CRM worked so well for DVDs and Blu-ray discs, surely it will be just
as good on 3D printers! It's un-hackable(TM)!

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malero
TIL futuristic 3D-printers will have a 3.5" floppy disk drive and 2 sets of
arrow keys on the keyboard.

I can't wait for the future!

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mtgx
When is the Government going to put an end to these patent-gathering entities?

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zeruch
DRM has worked so well in other areas so far :|

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Florin_Andrei
This is file sharing all over again.

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fjorder
Myhrvold is thinking about printer "piracy" in exactly the same way that RIAA
thinks about music "piracy", and we all know how productive that's been!
Placing artificial legal limits on distribution technology simply doesn't
work. Makers of objects that are 3D-printable need to learn from the recording
industry's mistakes. Instead of trying to legislate away "piracy", they need
to find ways to provide enough perceived value to consumers that they can
compete. They need to learn from companies like Apple, Amazon, or Valve, not
BMI, Sony, or Warners.

3D-printing is going to be rather limited at first. You're not likely to be
able to 3D-print something as simple as a thermos-mug for quite some time!
However, there is going to be room to use materials and construction methods
that make traditionally manufactured goods distinct and desirable. There will
also be ample opportunity to provide services surrounding the sale of 3D
models, as Valve, Amazon, and Apple currently do for software sales.

One thing that is different from the music industry is that there will likely
be a big market for bespoke designs. People are going to want items that are
unique and tailored to their needs. Designing for mass production could give
way to designing for individuals and industrial design could become a cottage
craft. In this scenario, designers would make most of their money off of
bespoke commissions. There may actually be an explosion in demand for
designers since traditional manufacturing processes are not really suited to
produce more than a few designs at a time. While bespoke designs may wind up
being shared by buyers with "pirates", buyers will pay the cost of losing the
uniqueness they paid for if they do share models. This is quite different from
music. While people want their friends to listen to the music they like, they
generally want to have distinctive items from them.

Similar to the labels that used to serve as distributors for music,
manufacturers who only produce goods that can also be 3D-printed will be the
big losers. Just as Artists who have treated "piracy" as the "new radio" have
benefited, designers could also greatly benefit in a world with ubiquitous 3D
printing. e.g. If a coffee mug you designed is trending on the "pirate" sites,
you'll probably get a lot of bespoke commissions!

The prospects provided by 3D printing are especially enticing for consumers,
and not just because it will be possible to find free designs and (presumably)
save money. Consumers will have direct contact with designers and freedom from
the constraints on design imposed by mass production. We are going to see the
design of 3D printable models evolve to meet consumer needs faster and more
effectively than at any point in human history. Whatever you're doing, the
tools are just going to get more and more dialed in and perfect. You also
won't need to go looking for a new design when you have an old design that was
_perfect_ , as we so often have to do now.

The only reason for DRM to exist is to protect the dinosaurs. Hopefully we've
learned enough from the music and movie industries that we can be happy just
letting them evolve or die.

~~~
dredmorbius
The structural effect of legally sanctioned DRM was to make large-scale for-
profit audiovisual media replication (and services predicated in whole or part
on this) impossible. It did rather less to save the old oligarchy (the
entertainment-industrial cartel) though it may have slowed its decline
somewhat, than it did quash the emergence of smaller-scale, decentralized
upstarts.

Instead, we've ended up with Apple iTunes Store, YouTube, and a handful of
streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify.

I see the Myhrvold patent as less a threat in itself than of a very strong
indicator of how and what he's thinking of. And I don't care for what it
suggests, though I don't know how bad the effects will be.

A huge factor for 3-D printing will be that replication isn't merely a
_copyright_ issue anymore, but that we'll be staring straight into the abyss
of wide-scale _patent_ infringement. A patent incurs infringement on anyone
who ... "without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented
invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any
patented invention during the term of the patent".

Big ole' can o' worms there. And IV looks to be sitting right in the middle of
it.

~~~
humdumb
"... without authority makes, ..."

There are exceptions, e.g., for research and development.

Would printing a prototype of a product to be produced overseas (and never
imported) be infringement?

When patent trolls start being linked to loss of jobs, i.e. linked to impeding
the creation of new jobs, then IV is going to have a more serious PR problem.

pIt is the aggressive pursuit of the small inventor^1 that will signal the
eventual demise of the trolling business, because at that point it will have
become more than just tax collection on innovation from existing businesses.
It will be an impediment to the formation of new businesses and the creation
of new jobs.

1\. Ironically it was the small inventor, with the help of an enterprising
litigator like Niro, approaching the large company producing products, like
Intel, that motivated to the term "patent troll". But truthfully, some small
inventors do want to produce products. Some of them do start companies. All
large companies were once small ones. If the trolling business is taken to its
natural end, building an impenetrable thicket that can block any player in a
given industry, are potential entrepreneurs going to pay a troll for a license
just to _start_ a business? What do you think?

~~~
dredmorbius
Exceptions to _patent_ rights?

I'm more familiar with copyright statute, but I still have no awareness of
"fair use" exemptions to patent rights.

There _are_ proposals for such a thing. At present, they're just that.
<http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2005/03/index.html>

~~~
humdumb
Check out the Merck v Integra case on the page you linked to.

That was what I was thinking of. Section 271. Subsection (e) and maybe another
one or two.

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ktizo
Given the development of 3d printers that print their own parts, I think this
terrible idea is thankfully just pissing into a hurricane. Who is going to buy
the DRM-enabled printer from the factory, when someone down the road can knock
you up a cheaper one without the restriction.

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lhnn
"cunning".... that word doesn't mean what you think it means.

This is DRM.

~~~
techpeace
<http://cunningplan.com/>

