3-D printing attracts the copyright vampires

Are we really going to have this fight all over again with physical objects? I guess this is what vampires do–rise from the dead to drain our blood, in this case the lifeblood of our culture.

As 3-D Printing Becomes More Accessible, Copyright Questions Arise

Many people think 3-D printing could help spark a manufacturing renaissance in the U.S. — even President Obama highlighted this technology in his State of the Union address last week.

But as 3-D printers and 3-D scanners get cheaper, this nascent industry could be roiled by battles over intellectual property.

Not so long ago, a good 3-D scanner that could create accurate digital models of objects in the real world cost more than $10,000. Then, Microsoft released the Kinect — the video game controller that allows you to play games by just waving your hands.

“But it turned out that the Kinect was actually much more than that — it was a 3-D camera but one-hundredth of the price,” says Nicolas Burrus, co-founder of manctl, a 3-D scanning company.