Problem praw własności w kontekście upowszechnienia technologii druku przestrzennego
Problem of property law in the context of 3d printing technology

Summary/Abstract: This paper concerns the problem of intellectual property law in the context of 3D printing technology, that becomes more popular. In the age of universal digital communication and constant growth of importance of digital information goods, intellectual property is becoming a cause of dispute between different social groups. This is partly because of the impact of informal institutions formed during development of the Internet and social movements postulating free access to information (including the digital information goods). Other important issue is also the problem of public copyright infringement in order to achieve private benefits. Conflicts concerning enforcement of the intellectual property right are related to substantially all of the digitized content: written word, music, movies and software. On one hand the decrease of the costs of copying equipment, allows an average consumer to buy such a printer. On the other hand the increase of the Internet bandwidth makes this phenomenon more significant. 3D printing technology is the next stage of self-production process. This technology goes beyond the abstract world of information to a real world of physical goods. Thus, the violation of property rights refers now not only to information goods, but also to physical products. The authors put the thesis that the development of 3D printing technology will intensify the conflicts and will increase the number of abuses in area of intellectual property law. In this article the authors discuss the development of 3D printing technology, which originally was connected only with so-called rapid prototyping in the product development process. However, with cheaper equipment, this technology became available to a larger number of users who have used it to make the final products. This process was simultaneous to research projects conducted by academic institutions such as RepRap and Fab@Home. The main goal of RepRap project was to create self-replicating machine. The RepRap 3D printer allows to print more 3D printing devices. This project is regulated by copyleft licenses allowing to manipulate within the files with a legal authors permission. Extending the reflections on copyright issue the authors focused on the licenses that allow to share the projects files required for the creation of physical objects. Copyleft licenses are sometimes given illegally. Some of the project files contain elements that are under copyright restriction. This situation was discovered during the analysis of the content shared between users of 3D printers portals. This situation creates a great threat to the enterprises engaged in luxury goods because in this business the main value is the idea – the design. Easy replication provided by 3D printing technology enforces more effective copyright regulations or even modification of the form of distribution of items protected by law. The development of 3D printing technology will inevitably increase the number of conflicts and abu

• Details
• Contents