3-D Printing Moves Closer to the Mainstream; New York Times, 1/20/14

1/20/14, New York Times; 3-D Printing Moves Closer to the Mainstream:

As I’ve written in the past, all this newfangled 3-D printing will bring with it newfangled copyright issues. The entire concept of ownership and copyright is up for grabs since 3-D objects cannot be copyrighted the same way music, videos and art can be...

“Copyright doesn’t necessarily protect useful things,” Michael Weinberg, a senior staff lawyer at Public Knowledge, a digital advocacy group in Washington, told me in 2011 when 3-D printing was still on the fringes. “If an object is purely aesthetic it will be protected by copyright, but if the object does something, it is not the kind of thing that can be protected.”