Because, why not, it appears that we have arrived at round 4 of Just 3D Print vs The World.  In this round, Just 3D Print is bringing a new lawsuit* (it lost the last one) against the media company 3DR Holdings for reporting on Just 3D Print’s shenanigans.  The tl;dr version of this round is that Just 3D Print has brought no new evidence to the table and its claims this time seem just as big of a waste of time in Round 4 as they did in Round 3.  There do not appear to be any good reasons left to continue this lawsuit, although there are potentially one or two bad ones (see below).

Update: If you think unlocking 3D printers (or other types of things like video game consoles, airplane black boxes) is important, please consider donating to organizations like Public Knowledge. They do the real, often behind the scenes heavy legal lifting that makes it possible to push the Copyright Office to make these types of things possible.

Good news from the US Copyright Office.  Three years ago I petitioned the US Copyright Office asking it to confirm that using unapproved print material in a 3D printer did not violate US copyright law.  The Copyright Office granted the petition (with some important caveats).  However, the process driving the entire enterprise requires that petitions be renewed every three years.  Earlier this year I petitioned for a renewal, and last week that renewal was granted.  

One of the issues that continues to vex the open source hardware community is licensing.  The reason for this is simple: licensing in open source hardware is hard.  From an IP standpoint, open source software is basically a single blob of stuff comprehensively covered by a single copyright.  That means you can pick a single copyright license and be done.

Four and a half years ago, in the wake of HBO’s decision to send a DMCA notice removing a 3D printed Game of Thrones iPhone dock from the internet, I wrote a short blog post titled HBO, Give People a Way to Buy Your 3D Printed Stuff for the Public Knowledge blog.  Today I get to write a post celebrating the fact that Valve has decided to do just that.