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communications law, computer internet law, copyright law, education law, evidence, and trademark law

I. Introduction Three-Dimensional printing (sometimes called "additive manufacturing" 1 or "rapid prototyping" 2 ) will transform our economy and culture in dramatic ways. 3D printers can already make a wide variety of things: shoes, clothes, car parts, toys, guns, human body parts, and much more. 3 Their capabilities will only continue to improve. Traditionally, most sculptures and other three-dimensional art started with a block of solid material from which the artist removed unwanted pieces until she formed the sculpture. 3D printing turns this idea on its head: complex shapes and sculptures will no longer require removal of material from a unitary block; rather, the printer will build the object up layer-by-layer. All you need to print almost anything is a printer, "ink," and computer files detailing the item being printed. The confluence of 3D printing, 3D scanning, and the Internet will commingle the physical world and the digital world and will bring millions of laypeople into intimate contact with the full spectrum of intellectual property laws. 4 One of the areas most affected by 3D printers will be three-dimensional art. This Article begins the work of identifying and responding to the effects of 3D printing technology on copyright law. After introducing the technology in Section II, this Article analyzes three ways in which 3D printing (together with 3D scanning and the Internet) will affect the creation, delivery, and consumption of art. First, Section III discusses how 3D printing will bring the fields of ...

business corporate law, communications law, computer internet law, constitutional law, copyright law, governments, international trade law, and patent law

Introduction For centuries, objects have been designed by processes involving pencil and paper drawings or the construction of physical prototypes. Beginning in the 1980s, machines, products, and components thereof have been increasingly designed mostly - if not entirely - on computers using computer aided design ("CAD") programs. 1 CAD programs are widely used by designers, engineers, and architects today to imagine and make virtual 3D models of various objects, enabling the objects to be fully digitally developed before they are physically created. 2 CAD programs offer many advantages over non-digital processes, such as the ability to easily change and refine a design, as well as a high degree of precision in defining all of the features and dimensions of the design. 3 While designs can certainly be created and manipulated in CAD programs from scratch, 3D scanning technology can also be used to make a CAD file that digitally captures and represents an existing object. 4 Once created, CAD files function as digital "blueprints" that can be used by manufacturers to make products to exact specifications in a factory setting. 5 Like other digital files, CAD files may be easily and widely distributed via any digital storage medium or network, such as the Internet. 6 Three-dimensional or "3D" printing is an emerging technology that is already having an enormous and profound impact on how products are made and sold. Just like CAD programs largely obviated the need for paper drafting and physical prototyping, 3D printing has the capability to ...