Copyleft

I want to talk about copyright, partly because it was something covered in my class and we watched a wonderful documentary called RiP! A Remix Manifesto. Copyright affects me personally on a day to day basis with 3D printing but it has been affecting me since I was young. I can remember downloading music illegally using services like LimeWire and I can remember the kick back that came from the music industry in the form of an actual effort to track down and charge people who were downloading music illegally. That later morphed into going after sites like the pirate bay and such which I won’t even bother linking to because they are taken down and put back up under a different domain so often that it wouldn’t be worth it. Copyright affects 3D printing as well with actual lawsuits being litigated over who has the rights to distribute a given work. I can remember one that happened a while back in which an ebay seller was selling 3D model files that they had no right to and were rightfully being taken to court because they hadn’t followed the proper creative commons licensing agreement as reported here.

I really love the artist in the documentary’s use of audio editing software to warp existing material into something completely new, to turn something into a sound bite that can then be used any number of times if it fits. His music was, unique, but the practices were common, even if they are usually performed in a legal fashion. Girl Talk specifically deals in existing sounds and that makes him particularly susceptible to the copyright as he calls them. I’ve done it too in a similar way to him, not just downloading and listening to the music, but taking it and using it in my own endeavors like a tribute music video I made in my youth or the pico projector assignment where I used the Goldeneye intro music for the assignment. Creative ways of making music fascinate me and I loved the digitally generated music featured here but I would really like to get back to copyright.

I have done a fair bit of digging as this affects me daily with the 3D printing community. What am I allowed to do with a file I have downloaded? What rights should I keep for the files I produce? If it says I can’t use it for commercial purposes, does that mean I am unable to make the 3D printer covered under that and then make money by printing items off for people for profit? I have yet to find an actual answer to that one other than to ask the person who made the files what his intent was with any given rule placed on my use of the files. I am in the process of creating my own 3D printer design tentatively called the Creation Core (pending better name) and while I would absolutely love following in the footsteps of the RepRap project, part of me would not want to see someone start making kits based off of my printer design and selling them for profit. The actual design progress is covered on my Instagram linked on the side of the page if you are interested.

This whole topic ended up with me taking a very deep dive into some of the finer points of copyright law in the US and Canada as well as the Creative Commons licensing system. I ended up learning the meanings and restrictions signified by each of the creative commons symbols and how they play with each other. It really is something that is going to be affecting more people on the internet soon with the approval of the EU’s new internet copyright laws but that is a subject for another post.