UK & EU Shut Out 3D Printing Community … It’s amazing what an eruption Brexit had in the headlines, only to be superseded by worse things in the news shortly after … What an interesting law they have chosen to pass. -3DPrint
The disease of government is like an ineradicable plague that sickens without ceasing. Now patent and copyright law have been extending in the UK and EU.
Why should we pay to provide you the privilege of exclusivity? Especially when we are well aware that only a relative few benefit substantially from intellectual property rights.
Musicians don’t benefit from these laws for the most part, though the record companies do. Authors don’t benefit from these laws for the most part, thought their publishers do.
As for inventors generally, would they really cease to tinker if they couldn’t patent their inventions? And don’t certain businesses routinely copy inventions with minor changes that circumvent patents and allow for duplication anyway?
The late, departed musician known as Prince was obsessed with “ownership” of his music. Ironic¡ally, many of his productions disappeared into a vault and have yet to be publicly presented. Turns out in his later years, he earned a good deal of income from public performances..
It is no coincidence that copyright began after the advent of the Gutenberg Press. As Wikipedia informs us, “The origin of copyright law in most European countries lies in efforts by the church and governments to regulate and control the output of printers.”
It never had much to do with enforcing YOUR property rights so much as ensuring that princes and churchmen were not overly inconvenienced by new ideas that might threaten their power, control and wealth.
Britain had strong copyright, Germany weaker, post-Gutenberg. German intellectual vitality was apparently aided by the free flow of information, HERE.
In fact, it can even be argued that German advances were perceived as threatening by London’s banking “City,” which helped launch two world wars to reduce a German Power that in part was product of laissez-faire.
More from 3D Print:
Now, following the EU, [the UK has] modified a copyright-and-patent monopoly law so that it extends its reach to the realm of furniture as well, including this traditional design industry within the law. And not only that—this is meant to hold for a century! A major impact to be considered here is that it directly affects makers in the UK, who will not be able to employ 3D printing in the manufacturing of some items. And right-o, not for a hundred years, at least.
This moves furniture out of the design patent arena and into the jurisdiction of copyright law, allowing for the lifetime of this decree on a particular design to last 25 years retroactively from the inception of its marketing to 70 years after the death of the creator. This is a pretty extreme way to kick out knock-off designers, but more so—it truly shuts out the creative maker community, not exactly known for creating sweatshops and employing the downtrodden to mass produce shoddy imitations.
The point here is twofold, we’re told.
The law actually extends the monopoly term backwards by 25 years. Designs once in the public domain are now removed. This also apparently removes the rights of current intellectual property owners who created products based on previous law.
Second, under previous law one was able to build a product for one’s use and enjoyment. Apparently now you can be subject to prosecution if the designs of your home-based product are too close to a commercial application.
Here’s our suggestion: If you want to preserve your right to your intellectual property, pay for it yourself. Confront people and corporations as you choose. Create solutions that engage others in your community and, perhaps, abroad as well. Even solicit funds to perpetuate and enforce your “rights.” Preferably this would be accomplished within a system of “private” justice rather the increasingly horrible precedent law we have today.
Bottom line: What gives you the right to use a civil and criminal judicial system paid for by others to benefit your propriety creativity? Who exactly has decided, in perpetuity, that because YOU created something, no one else can create something similar or elaborate on it without expensive litigation?
Libertarian lawyer Stephen Kinsella has made the removal of certain kinds of intellectual property “rights” a personal crusade. Below, HERE, is a partial list of gadgets that according to an 18th century Supreme Court decision “had no place in the constitutional scheme of advancing scientific knowledge.” (HERE)
And the Court commented HERE:
It was never the object of [intellectual property] laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of manufactures. Such an indiscriminate creation of exclusive privileges tends rather to obstruct than to stimulate invention.
We have often pointed out (for example, HERE and HERE) that three main supports of modern multi-national corporatism are intellectual property rights, corporate person-hood and monopoly central banking.
We are not fans of the emerging corporate and technocratic globalism and believe all three of these judicially mandated privileges ought to be considerably reduced or preferably removed.
The modern world has little to do with “capitalism” and much to do with government enforcement of Gargantuan facilities that would not exist without the support of state power.
People send all their lives laboring in horrible, meaningless facilities, thinking they are the result of free-markets when they are not. Thomas Jefferson in particular foresaw the potential rise of corporatism and with other Founders attempted to reduce its danger by handing corporate control to states. Obviously, that plan has gone awry.
Conclusion: Normal people do not benefit much from intellectual property rights, though their taxes pay for both creation and enforcement. If the entire state-supported intellectual rights apparatus were removed, it is likely, in our view, that most people would see choices expanded and prosperity enhanced.
Updated.
