I was mentioning something that was orthogonal to the article. DRM is mainly about protecting revenues. Now, what revenues? To make sure the end user pays for each and every use of a copyrighted X. DRM is only the means to enforce copyright.
Our country is a huge exporter of copyrighted goods. Now, much of those have physical objects on them as well. But still, I would argue our chief export IS the information how to build/do.
I sit in a very precarious world of current 3d printing. I'm old enough to have seen "dont coppy that floppy" by MC Hammer. I also saw the Napster empire build up and come a-crumbling down. We all saw what our DOJ is willing to do to shut down an evil piracy center (MegaUpload). We'll skip the fact that the FBI used the fact that they asked MU to save said pirated files, and then used that as the basis.
But what of 3d printing? That turns all of my consumer-ish 'whoops it's broken' to download/design failed part, print said part! The fun part is those gears can be patented and/or copyrighted. At the Midwest Reprap Festival, there was a person who was talking about a gear set made for a vacuum manufacturer that was known for having NO spare parts anywhere. Someone online, made a gear library for these non-standard gears for this vacuum.
I see the copyright argument and fight over 3d printing to make the Napster one look like a cakewalk. And I havent even discussed DefCad yet, with print your own Guns. That's a teergrube all in itself.
Guns being defined by the lower receiver, and not any pressurized or load bearing part. This is defined by the US govt.
