Christopher W.

An exploration in support of my 3D printed ‘Hyperdodecahedron', looking at Intellectual Property laws and how this could affect the growth of the 3D printing industry.

3D printing is becoming commercially available to the mass market, giving the people the power to design, choose, customise and produce personalised goods. My artefact is symbolising the growth of this cultural and technological advancement; and by exploring the possibilities and ideals that it represents, I hope to be justifying why this object can be seen as an artefact of alternative publishing.

The artefact is a 3D printed four-dimensional 120-cell Polytope, known as a Hyperdodecahedron – the fifth out of six possible Polytopes – and it can also be thought of as the analog version of a dodecahedron, an object with twelve identical joining faces. To the mathematician it is a four-dimensional ‘Hyperbolic Space’ object. Where in spherical geometry every point has a constant positive curvature, in hyperbolic geometry every point has a negative curvature - meaning that every point is a saddle point. To put it simply, think of this object as the opposite of a circle. Now the non-mathematician may be lost already with this explanation, as I was initially when I discovered the four-dimensional object, however this objects complexities are what make it an excellent artefact to display; to highlight the capabilities of 3D printing and to recognise it as a growing industrial movement that will bring big change to the global consumer market.

The Hyperdodecahedron is made from laser-sintered nylon plastic; a material when thin is flexible enough to be used for springs and when thick enough it can be used as building blocks, though the possibilities are endless. This is done through a process known as ‘additive manufacturing’, where layer by layer the material is injected, hardened and built up until you are left with a three-dimensional object. Items of wearable clothing can be made from the stuff, along with gun parts and jewellery and most likely whatever else you can imagine. The only slightly disconcerting piece of information about the material itself, that I was only made aware of in my order conformation email, is that ‘…The products should not come in to contact with electricity…’ Not that I think this of great concern, but rather it simply intrigued me, as I have never read a warning like that for a decorative object.

When purchasing this design from one of, if not the biggest, 3D printing online companies to date - Shapeways.com (founded in 2008) - I was given the option of having the object produced in 13 different materials ranging from the most basic ‘White, Strong & Flexible’ (that my object was made from) to ‘Gold Plated Glossy’. The size of the object restricts the materials that can be used to produce it, and both the size and the material used will determine the price. My object measures (in inches) 2.5 w x 2.624 d x 2.135 h, it cost €13.20 to produce, plus €4.12 for tax and €7.42 for shipping – a total of €24.74 or £20.92. Considering that the only places online I have seen that sell a handmade Hyperdodecahedron (at around the same size as my 3D printed one), whether that be a stand-alone object or as a pendant, going for around £113 minimum, in this example, going for the 3D printed option makes logical sense.

My object, made to complete mathematical accuracy, is extremely complex and would take weeks, if not months to complete if it were handmade and most likely sell for hundreds of pounds sterling to account for the man-hours put into producing it. The 3D printed route on the other hand pretty much guarantees the mathematical accuracy, costs next to nothing in comparison, and dramatically reduces the time it takes to produce and distribute to the consumer from months to just over a week. It is because of this massive difference in time, effort and money that I have chosen this object to be my artefact. Its complexities of such small dimensions suggest the growing possibilities of 3D printing, and highlight the massive industrial shift that will soon affect the home-user as much as when computers entered the home, shifting its way from alternative into the mainstream consumer market as a process of design and production.

I believe that my object can be considered to cross between the alternative and the mainstream, because of the process that was undertaken to produce it, as the process itself is unlike, and therefore alternative, to current production methods. A few years ago, an object like this that is made fully personalised and so made to order, would have been unthinkable to most. With this process comes the opportunity to design an object and then be able to sell it online without the need for large capital investment or an inventory of stock. The very notion of that last sentence still seems baffling to me, as it is impossible to gage to what extent, this alternative process of designing and producing an object, crossing into the mainstream, will actually change the way the world works, how business’ will grow and ultimately how the end result is received by the consumer.

3D printing has been around since the 1980s, but its commercial use is only just starting to trend and because of this I believe that it is the perfect time to display my object as an artefact of alternative publishing. This is the biggest shake up of the process from designer to producer to the consumer, since the establishment of the printing press in Europe in the 1450s through to the home computer becoming common in the 1980s. As the computer allowed the home user to write articles, make music, make movies and then publish their creative works to the world, 3D printing gives the home user the power to choose, design, customise and produce; limited only by human imagination. My hope is that by displaying my object: those who do not already have knowledge on the subject will be able to recognise to some degree, what all this actually means for the global community if left unrestricted.

Francis Bacon once said:

We should note the force, effect, and consequences of inventions which are nowhere more conspicuous than in those three which were unknown to the ancients, namely, printing, gunpowder and the compass. For those three have changed the appearance and state of the whole world…

(Eisenstein, p.43)

These three inventions are still steadily shaping our world, however if this quote were to be spoken in the 21st century, there would be the addition of a fourth invention unknown not only to the ancients but most of the current global community – 3D printing of course. I believe that my object symbolises this leap in art, culture and industry growth and the great significance of that. However, in order for this means of production to fully benefit the global community rather than just a small class of people, as Karl Marx sees it, it is down to the Bourgeois class - the collectors of enterprises and capital, the owners of the means of production – to allow this growth to happen. The Bourgeois “…have proved that it really is possible, through organised, concerted action, to change the world.” (Berman, p.104) and so the responsibility to share this technological advancement with the world falls into the hands of the highest social class; those that already have the ability to utilise this process; and those that have the technical know-how to design and share. Progression of which we are beginning to see take shape now, with companies like Shapeways and forums like Thingiverse – a 3D design file sharing website.

One element as to why I believe that my object symbolises this growth to such an extent, is because of how it represents space and how that is perceived. I could spend hours looking at it, shining a light through it and simply holding it in my hand. Weighing less than a packet of chewing gum, it is difficult to understand how something this small yet so complex, can be created by a machine - without the assistance of the delicate human hand. My object could simply not be mass-produced through current moulding processes and because of this, it is an object that most will have only come into contact with on paper. When looking at it, most people will first ask, ‘how was it made?’ and ‘really, how does that work?’ (All of the people that have seen my object asked the first, and all but one asked the second), and because of this reaction, I really believe that it can, and in most cases will, change the viewers perception of space.

Another question that seemed common was ‘what about copyright?’ Solely speaking about my object, a Hyperdodecahedron is perceived as a useful object rather than a creative piece of work, and therefore is non-copyrightable and cannot be patented either. However if I were to adapt the design and add an image to one of the faces, that on its own can be considered an original artistic creation, made with no utilitarian restrictions, then copyright-ability can be severed; rights applied only to the image and not to the object itself.

Intellectual property laws and this rule of severability, individual to each case, are used to determine who has rights to a design/object/creative piece of work and who does not. These laws are complex ones, which date back to the 16th century when the idea of owning material and then selling it on arrived, and essentially haven’t changed all that much since. It is only now, with the emergence of digital 3D files, 3D scanners and the 3D printed objects themselves, that comes uncertainty of how these laws will adapt, if at all, to account for them. If the scope of copyright is extended to include protection of the file along with the printed object, then the utopian ideal of sharing designs for others to adapt on -without anyone infringing upon copyright laws - will be crushed.

On the other hand, as the political sphere attempts to create a POV for the public sphere, and undoubtedly tries to control how we see and use 3D printing, there will always be movements fighting against it. Pirate Bay is a brilliant example as it is a platform that allows users to search and download music for free. Thingiverse is the 3D model design, legal, version of Pirate Bay. So what will happen if they try to shut that down? There is the argument that nothing creative is really original anymore, everything is born out of inspiration of something else, whether it derived into something similar or something extremely different – the influence came from somewhere. As we see more and more artists in the music industry claiming copyright infringements and attempting to make everyone pay to enjoy their music, we also see more and more artists releasing music free of charge and adapting to cultural change.

If this cultural movement of being able to share designs in order to create something new, continues in the same format as Thingiverse, we will see an industry growth at a rate never seen before. The sort of change that the music industry as a whole is rejecting as the fear is artists will loose out on earnings they ‘rightly’ deserve. Imagine the wider effect if all music was made for the public sphere, free of charge? Only the most talented artists would survive, and earn their living through sponsors, rather than the sale of their creative works. Intellectual property laws would still apply to stop anyone directly copying with no creative alterations and then distributing as their own, but essentially, the law would not hinder creativity – and this, in my opinion, should span all industries.

I believe that these issues surrounding intellectual property laws and 3D printing are not something that hasn’t already been raised before, however I do think that my object addresses these issues in a new light and the printing process as an upcoming trend, because of the generation that I am apart of and publishing this artefact for. I put forward that it is educating its viewer, as it will be the first stepping stone to learning more about the possibilities, benefits and drawbacks, of this relatively new, industry process merging into the mainstream consumer market.

As mentioned earlier, 3D printing emerged in the late 1980s and was mainly used for rapid prototyping. A slightly later example of rapid prototyping that came in 2004, was the Audi RSQ – a concept car designed as product placement, depicting what cars would be like in the year 2035, in the movie I, Robot . While that is a rather cool use for 3D printing, it is also being heavily researched for use in the medical world. As of 2013 for example, The Advanced Manufacturing Technology group from the University of Iowa is developing 3D printer, ‘bio-ink’, that would be used to create human organs. Imagine one of your organs is failing and you would certainly die within a few months if there were no replacement. Today, you’d go on a waiting list and almost certainly die before you got the transplant. However if the ability to 3D print human organs was in full production, no donor would be needed and you would get a lung, made for you, constructed from your own DNA, within weeks of being told your lung was failing.

In my conclusion, I would like to draw all of the attention back to my artefact itself, the 3D printed Hyperdodecahedron. Although the process of how it was made is obviously a large proportion of what my artefact is representing, it is actually the change to modernism in art and culture, modernisation in politics and economics, the huge advancements in technology and medicine; that it symbolises. It is a thought-provoking object that highlights the next big step in technological advancement, and of human existence, which we are currently undergoing - a generation that I am excited and intrigued to be apart of.

Bibliography

Web

http://defcad.org/ [03/13]

http://www.shapeways.com/ [03/13]

http://davidf.faricy.net/polyhedra/Polytopes.html [03/13]

Articles

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/in-depth/analysis/building-body-parts-with-3d-printing/1002542.article [03/13]

http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v4/n5/full/nchem.1313.html [03/13]

http://www.ptonline.com/articles/3d-printers-lead-growth-of-rapid-prototyping [03/13]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/26/3d-printed-gun-movement_n_2957695.html [03/13]

http://www.todaysmachiningworld.com/origins-a-3d-vision-spawns-stratasys-inc/ [04/13]

http://www.mmsonline.com/columns/subtractive-plus-additive-equals-more-than [04/13]

Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing [03/13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convex_regular_4-polytope [03/13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_space [03/13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/120-cell [03/13]

Books

Beck, Ulrich, Risk Society , SAGE publications, 1992

Davis, Jennifer, Intellectual Property Law , Oxford University Press, 2008

Eisenstein, Elizabeth, The Printing Press As An Agent Of Change Vol.1 , Cambridge University Press, 1979

H. S. M. Coxeter, Regular Polytopes, 3rd. ed., Dover Publications, 1973

Christopher W.

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