While the IP saga of Left Shark lives on, at this point I think we have enough distance to try and determine if there are any larger lessons to be learned from this entire enterprise.  From where we stand today I think it is safe to say that there is at least one.

This post originally appeared on the Make: blog on April 30, 2015.

The Radio Free Culture podcast at the Free Music Archive (which is at the Bergmayer-approved WFMU) let me come on to talk about 3D printing and IP this week.  They also gave me some soap.

This article first appeared in Techdirt on April 28, 2015.

Many of you will likely remember that shortly after the Super Bowl there was a bit of a thing here on Shapeways in connection with a model of Left Shark.  To briefly review and condense the timeline: person awkwardly dancing inside shark costume during the halftime show rockets to internet fame.  Designer Fernando Sosa creates 3D model of the newly christened “Left Shark” and starts selling it on Shapeways.  Katy Perry’s lawyers send Shapeways a nastygram asserting rights in Left Shark.  Fernando Sosa responds, questioning if Katy Perry has any rights in Left Shark at all.  Left Shark makes its triumphant return to Shapeways.  (In a B story that foreshadows today’s news, Katy Perry then uses Sosa’s Left Shark as part of her trademark application).