zlacker

While no one wants anyone to steal a car, almost no one would mind freely cloning a car. The trouble truly is that 3d-printing hasn't gotten that good yet.

>>thedev+(OP)
If 3d printing was that good, stealing a car would be moot because production costs would come way down and only need to cover cost/procurement of materials and paying back the black box.

Regardless, I don't think the car is an apt metaphor here. Cars are an important utility and gatekeeping cars arguably holds society back., art is creative expression, and no one is going hungry because they didn't have $10 for the newest book.

We also have libraries already for this reason, so why not expand on that instead of relinquishing sharing of knowledge to a private corporation?

>>johnny+42
I dislike framing art as something unimportant. Art is a vital part of being a human and part of a culture. We've grown accustomed to our culture being commoditized and rented back to us, but that doesn't mean the culture is unimportant, or such a state of affairs is acceptable.

>>thedev+(OP)
The car would be unlikely to exist if its maker had to expect free clones without compensation. So yes, people would mind.

>>layer8+T8
Completely untrue. If some clever engineer or consortium of engineers designed a 3D-printable car for 3D printing-and-manufacturing companies to make then it surely would exist. If you buy one from a Ford dealership you'd be getting the Ford-branded version which may have their own tweaks to the design.

It makes perfect sense to me that the big carmakers could get together some day and develop a handful of car platforms that all their cars will be built upon. That way they can buy the parts from any number of manufacturers (on-demand!) and save themselves a ton of money.

They kind of already do that, actually =)