Background
D.I.Y. ? new style
What are the social, legal and ethical aspects of the advance of 3D printers? "The whole Pirate Bay business will flare up again, but with objects this time."
Bart Braun
Wednesday 13 November 2013
As of yet, they are ugly, have bad aim and tend to explode in your hands. But yeah, you can 3D-print firearms. Should there be laws about that?

"It’s turning into a hype" Dr. Bibi van den Berg grumbles as she surveys the recent media coverage of 3D printers. "So much of what is said is not true and so many of the promises are not feasible." It might be disappointing for those people who were cheered by the reports, but we won’t be able to print any human organs for a while yet. Nor can we solve world hunger with a 3D printer, as it would need a cartridge just like any ordinary printer. "It’s not a magic machine: if you want to print a carrot cake, you need to feed it carrots and flour and all the other ingredients first."

Van den Berg, a philosopher of technology who works for eLaw, the University’s centre for digital technology, is helping to organise a convention on 3D printing which Leiden is hosting next week. "Many of these conventions focus on the technical and material-engineering side of printing but, even in global terms, only a handful have examined the ethics, the politics and the consequences for society and the business sector. Nonetheless, we will be forced to consider these aspects if the technology makes a breakthrough."

Just in case you missed it: a 3D printer does exactly what it says on the box: it’s a machine that prints objects. You feed in a raw material, tell it what to make and the device will then pipe or fuse the shape you want. The raw material is usually plastic but some printers can sinter metal powders with a laser. In fact, there is one on the market, specially designed for confectioners, that prints chocolate in every shape imaginable.

The first patents date from the eighties, but like any other technology, 3D printing has continued to evolve. Resolution, affordability and usability have improved – you can even do your design in Minecraft¸ or just take some snaps with your Smartphone and use an app to calculate a 3D model. Experts expect that next year, when the first patents expire, three-dimensional printing will become much cheaper and more accessible.

So if you had a 3D-printer, what would you print?

Manufacturers are producing prototypes in the hope that the technology will one day be cheap enough for mass production. Nike is printing shoes that fit a person’s foot exactly. Creative souls are making earrings, furniture, iPad covers, lamp shades and even prosthetic limbs sometimes.

One of the speakers at the convention will specifically examine the relationship people have with their belongings. Would you treat your own prints differently to things you have bought in a shop?

Obviously, you could print toys, branded products or anything else to which a manufacturer has the rights. Toy manufacturer Games Workshop’s lawyers were already tackling someone who designed his own version of a tank from one of its games and put the model online. "The whole Pirate Bay business about films, software and music will flare up again, but with objects this time. And it will be more complicated because it will involve patents and trademark law as well as copyrights", predicts Van den Berg.

"Of course, Gucci won’t be happy if you print their handbag at home", she adds, "but what if you were to sell the bag to me, and it somehow injures me? Would you be liable? Would the manufacturer of the printer or the cartridge be liable? Or maybe Gucci’s designers?"

Several speakers at the congress will talk about copyright and liability issues. Van den Berg explains: "Consumer law currently covers your rights and to whom you can complain if your coffeemaker bursts into flame, but who knows what will happen in the future?"

An entirely different question is what our stuff will look like in a world full of 3D-printers. Much of what we buy nowadays is produced elsewhere for next to nothing and as a consequence, it is often much cheaper to replace something than to repair it.

But that could change. "Perhaps a washing-machine manufacturer could set up a database with 3D models of all the parts. The repairman would not need to have a large stock of screws and other bits. However, that would give the machines a longer life and manufacturers who produce irreparable products would be worse off."

It is not inconceivable. For instance, aircraft manufacturer Airbus has spare parts for all its craft at every airport in the world because if something breaks, the plane still needs to be airborne again as soon as possible. Huge amounts of money and materials are needed to maintain the parts, even though most of them will never be used. If you could replace all those stores of bolts and propellers with 3D printers, you could cut your costs considerably. Technically, there are still a few hitches – the bolts must fit the nuts exactly, even if the bolt is printed in New York and the nut in Cairo – but that is the direction Airbus wants to take.

"3D printing’s main applications will be used for stock management, smarter use of raw materials and more efficient transport. Printing your own furniture might be fun but it won’t be any cheaper than IKEA and not many people would be interested in trying it."

The Leids Volkshuis, Apothekersdijk 33A, 14 and 15 November