Why 3D Printing Will Be The Next Big Copyright Fight

It's finally happening. That moment we've been hearing about for years - the one where futuristic-sounding 3D printing becomes ubiquitous - is actually upon us. President Obama even mentioned 3D printing in his State of the Union address.  As prices drop and the technology improves, consumers are awaiting this disruptive new era with bated breath.

So are intellectual property lawyers. 

Before long, many of us will be able to print physical objects as easily as we once burned DVDs. And just as the Internet made trading MP3 music files and ripped movies a breeze, downloading 3D images to print on your shiny new MakerBot printer will be as easy as torrenting "The Hurt Locker." 

3D Copyright Takedown Notices Begin

Last week, HBO sent a cease-and-desist letter to Fernando Sosa asking him to stop selling a 3D printed iPhone dock he modeled after the Iron Throne chair from the popular HBO TV series Game of Thrones.  Even though Sosa designed the dock himself in Autodesk Maya, HBO owns the rights to the show, its characters, and apparently the inanimate objects that appear onscreen. 

It has been two years since the first known Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice for a 3D printable object was sent. After 3D artist Ulrich Schwanitz created a printable version of the famous Penrose triangle optical illusion, another modeler mimicked (not copied) the 3D rendering necessary to print his own. Schwanitz sent a copyright infringement complaint, but then later rescinded it and released his design into the public domain. 

In that case, the dispute involved two individuals. Now bigger, better-funded copyright owners are getting involved. As user-generated 3D model marketplaces like Thingiverse and Shapeways grow, expect to see them flooded with creations based on trademarked and copyrighted material. And expect to hear about more takedowns, lawsuits and new legal precedents.  

Copyright and 3D Printing: It's Complicated 

Unlike music and movies, the relationship between copyright and physical objects is not always straightforward. In general, non-artistic objects - that is, items intended to be used rather than admired for their aesthetic value - do not typically fall under the scope of copyright law. Certain objects can be patented, as long as they're not overly generic. Try as you might, though, you can't patent a chair, for example, unless you've designed an entirely new type of chair. 

But what if you design a chair with a very unique ornamentation on the armrests? If you download my chair design and print yourself out a version of the chair for your very own, can I sue your brains out, RIAA-style? 

When it comes to copyright and objects, courts try to apply what's called a "severability" test. That is, can you "sever" the artistic part from the useful part? If so, the artistic part is typically protected by copyright. The strictly useful part is not. 

In a recent white paper titled "What Is The Deal With Copyright and 3D Printing?" Public Knowledge explored these issues, but came up short on clear answers. Precisely how copyright law applies to 3D printing will be established only as the technology grows and lawsuits get filed. 

In the meantime, expect the intellectual property disputes to proliferate, almost as rapidly as the technology itself. 

Lead photo by Creative Tools. 

Anonymous Hacks U.S. State Department

While you were sleeping last night, Anonymous hacked into the U.S. State Department's website, reportedly in the name of fallen comrades Aaron Swartz and recently arrested members of LulzSec. Personal data - including names, email addresses and phone numbers of hundreds of State Department staffers - were leaked online to the ZeroBin website.

Anonymous hacks US State Dept, investment firm in homage to Aaron Swartz, #Lulzsec rt.com/usa/news/anony' #OpLastResort

' Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) February 20, 2013

The group also allegedly hit the investment firm George K. Baum and Company, which has ties to Stratfor, the private intelligence service that worked with the CIA (another former target of the group). 

Did you know this: dazzlepod.com/stratfor/?emai'That Investment Bank is linked to Stratfor

' OpLastResort (@OpLastResort) February 19, 2013

In that attack, Anonymous also published the account data and transaction information of the bank's users. The OpLastResort Twitter account says attacks are payback for the death of Aaron Swartz. "This tragedy is basis for reform of computer crime laws and the overzealous prosecutors," they write on the group's Twitter bio. 

But in an ironic twist, "Operation Last Resort" may have very unintended consequences.

Domino Effect

Will this attack finally wake up the U.S. government to the threat of online attackers? Last night's hack might galvanize lawmakers to support the CISPA bill and introduce even harsher Internet laws. And that kind of overreaction could cause more damage than the attacks themselves.

This latest attack comes on the heels of Anonymous defacing sites owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the United States Sentencing Commission, and the Federal Reserve. Anonymous also tried but failed to hit the broadcast of the State of the Union speech last week.

So the wheels for enacting draconian laws may already be in motion. Anonymous, which champions Internet freedom, may have just pushed the Web down a dark shaft.  

Worse yet, Anonymous also claims to possess "warheads," codes to unlock encrypted files said to contain sensitive government data, allegedly obtained during the Jan. 25 hack of the U.S. Sentencing Commission site. 

Under President Obama's new cyberlaw mandate, these actions are cyber threats, punishable by severe action. How far is the government willing to go?  And what will be the ultimate effect on our civil liberties?

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Top 7 Most Addictive Facebook Apps On The Planet

Addicted to Facebook? You're far from alone. Quite a few of Facebook's 1 billion+ users spend a large portion of their day logged in. Some passively check status updates and messages during breaks from work. Plenty of others are glued to social games like FarmVille and Words With Friends. 

Using the latest statistics from AppData, we pulled together a list of the seven most addictive Facebook apps. Sure, there are plenty of others grabbing attention (Bejeweled Blitz anyone?), but these seven rank especially high on the monthly and daily active users charts. We skipped third-party services like Spotify and Microsoft Live in favor of the truly addictive, fully integrated apps on which people seem to be wasting the most time. 

7. Words With Friends

Words With Friends has been everybody's favorite social Scrabble copycat for a few years now. Still, as new Facebook apps have risen and fallen, it remains one of the most widely used on the platform. Anybody who's ever played Words With Friends knows why. It's truly addictive for the same reason that Scrabble has long been a beloved board game, but this newer digital take on the classic bakes in your actual, real-life friends and lets you play multiple people at once to make it pretty much impossible to stop clicking. 

6. Diamond Dash

If you've ever played Bejeweled or Candy Crush Saga, you've essentially played Diamond Dash. It's incredibly simple: look for groups of like-colored diamonds and click on the cluster to make each one disappear. Rack up points. Neglect your professional duties. Repeat. 

Diamond Dash has the same basic pattern-seeking premise of many other games, but with as dead-simple of an approach as possible. That way you'll never get frustrated and the game's design, and visual hints ensure you'll keep clicking away until you get fired. 

5. Trip Advisor 

What better way to kill time on a slow work day than by daydreaming about fleeing your cubicle for some faraway escape? That's apparently what a lot of people do, among other things, on Trip Advisor's Facebook app. It doesn't have as many daily active users as the popular Facebook games, but more than 10 million people use it every month. 

On Facebook, you can plot your world travels on Trip Advisor's map, list where you'd like to go and see where your friends have been. It's pretty simple functionality. To be sure, much of the app's activity is probably coming from TripAdvisor.com, a robust travel search utility into which users can sign using their Facebook account. For a travel search site, there could hardly be a more successful social strategy than what Trip Advisor has pulled off. 

4. Texas HoldEm Poker

It should come as no surprise that virtual gambling is addictive, just like the real thing. With 38 million users, Zynga's online poker empire is the world's most popular. While you can't play for real money just yet, Zynga is planning to lobby lawmakers in Washington D.C. and California to change that. Later this year, Zynga is going to launch its first legit gambling product overseas. In the meantime, you can continue to waste your workday challenging your friends in one of Facebook's most popular social apps.  

3. CoasterVille 

Riding on the success of FarmVille, Zynga's CoasterVille has pretty much the same premise, but in an amusement park setting rather than on a farm. 

It's kind of like Sim City's less-popular cousin Sim Coaster, but doesn't require anywhere near as much thought.  Like so many of the most addictive Facebook games, CoasterVille pretty much tells you exactly what to do and is designed to keep your attention fixated on the game. Ride by ride, you can build your own theme park on the company dime while other people around the world suffer.

2. FarmVille 2

Surprise! FarmVille is really popular.

You knew that though, because even if you don't play Zynga's wildly popular social farming simulation game, you've seen your friends harvesting crops via status updates auto-barfed out by the app. At any given moment, the sequel to 2009's FarmVille can reliably be found in the top three most used Facebook apps. Every day, millions of people spend hours raising virtual farm animals and crops while our collective productivity withers away like a neglected bed of corn.

1. Candy Crush Saga

There could hardly be a simpler and harder-to-lose game than Candy Crush Saga. And that's what makes it the perfect Facebook app: You can sit there and mindlessly line up similar-looking pieces of candy, zapping each batch and scoring points as you go in Dr. Mario-like fashion. 

If you get stumped, zone out or wind up distracted by Facebook notifications, the game continually reels in your limited attention span with subtle visual animations that hint at what your next move should be. 

IT Automation: 5 Ways To Hit The 'Ugly' Stuff First

Guest author Jonathan Crane is Chief Commercial Officer of IPsoft.

As IT has expanded over the past decade, the average IT department has been required to spend more time and effort just keeping systems and services running. IT staffs now devote up to 30% of their time to making sure the lights stay on.

This is not a new phenomenon; many other industries have faced similar scenarios. The auto industry once employed thousands of people performing sequential, repetitive tasks along assembly lines. Today, those production lines are almost completely automated, leaving the humans to design tomorrow's concept cars.

But while technology lies at the heart of automating processes, its use in IT support is still woefully limited. That's not to suggest that nothing has been done; most current approaches, though, barely scratch the surface of what is possible. Typical implementations consist of basic scripting, run-book automations or static logic sequences at the task level.

The Power Of Automating IT Support

More advanced automation implementations completely replicate the activities of human IT employees, completely taking over menial tasks and leaving staff to tackle larger projects that require creativity, innovation and imagination. Truly expert systems can be used to automate first- or even second-line IT support roles as well as many of the complex, multi-stage activities that occupy IT engineers.

Replicating the tasks and decisions of human support engineers, these systems follow the same processes and create the same results, including running commands, evaluating responses, seeking out the relevant information and documentation, carrying out resolutions and, if required, providing an approving party with the right information to make an informed and rapid decision.

Leading systems can also vary the use of automated activities based on environmental and contextual cues. For instance, autonomic systems can choose to perform bandwidth-heavy work in the middle of the night when there is less network competition. They can analyze complex series of actions to decide which tasks to take on first. Autonomic technologies make it possible to automate virtually any IT function defined in a structured process.

The Value Of Starting "Ugly"

For those companies that are just starting to automate IT processes, though, deciding what to automate can be overwhelming. It's traditional to begin by automating the simplest tasks - the neat, well-defined, 'pretty' processes ' and gradually extend things over time. But for maximum impact, why not go after the 'ugly' stuff right away?

Start with the complex, multi-step, time-consuming and highly manual activities. Start with the tasks that require input from multiple people at various stages. Start with the noisiest processes and the most common faults.

5 "Ugly" Tasks

These five "ugly" tasks, for example, can be automated to deliver significant time and efficiency benefits as well as improvements in service quality:

1. Running Diagnostics. Up to 70% of the time it takes to fix an issue lies in diagnosing the cause. Automating diagnostics can free up significant amounts of employee time.

2. Predictive Incident Management. Automation software can be taught to spot impending issues and take corrective actions before they have any impact. This encompasses a significant portion of performance monitoring and eliminates much of the work required to fix things after they fail.

3. Requesting Permission. Many tasks stall because IT staff have to seek approval before proceeding. Automation software can seamlessly manage approval and escalation processes, effectively removing this step.

4. Service Readiness Checks. Many applications require complex, multi-stage, 'ready-for-service' checks before opening. Automation can save both time and effort by completing these checks and continuously monitoring performance.

5. Password Management. While password self-service portals are fairly common, automation can take this a step further by texting users with a new password immediately after they hit the retry limit. That reduces help desk phone calls and improves the customer experience.

By implementing automation where it will make the most impact, businesses can free up man-hours faster and show a better return on investment. Reallocating the time saved can then support the business' real goals, not just keeping the wheels turning.

 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Is There Nothing We Can Do To Stop Chinese Hackers?

The New York Times has a pretty stunning story this morning about Chinese military hackers. A security firm called Mandiant managed to track a huge number of attacks back to a single building near Shanghai that's operated by the Chinese military, a place called Unit 61398. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt linked to the article on his Google+ feed but added no comment, though Google of course has been the target of "highly sophisticated" (cough, government, cough) attacks from China.

The Chinese deny everything, of course. But as Mandiant puts it, either the attacks are all coming from inside this government building, or "a secret, resourced organization full of mainland Chinese speakers with direct access to Shanghai-based telecommunications infrastructure is engaged in a multiyear enterprise-scale computer espionage campaign right outside of Unit 61398's gates." 

Yes, maybe there are thousands of rogue hackers all working right outside this one military building and somehow the Chinese government, which keeps a chokehold on Internet usage, is completely unaware of what's taking place right underneath its nose.

So, okay. It's happening. As we reported earlier this month, World War III is already here, and we're all just pretending that it's not happening, and worst of all, we're losing.

What is to be done? 

(See also World War III Is Already Here - And We're Losing)

We Could Try Fighting Back

Back in August 2011 I interviewed Richard Clarke, a former top U.S. cybersecurity official who now runs a security and risk management company called Good Harbor Consulting.

Clarke complained that U.S. officials didn't even dare to bring up the subject with the Chinese. "We're doing nothing to penalize them. So from their perspective, why not do it?" Clarke said.

He suggested we ought to start fighting back, by zapping malware back into the computers from which the attacks originated. Though that might escalate tensions, "it's better than lying there prostrate having all your research and development and intellectual property stolen and doing nothing about it." 

According to the Times article, the U.S. government intends to start "a more aggressive defense" against the Chinese hackers. But not too tough, because of "huge diplomatic sensitivities," says an unnamed intelligence official. For example, though President Obama mentioned hackers in his recent State of the Union address, he spoke vaguely of "foreign countries and companies," and did not mention China specifically.

Maybe there's nothing we can do. Maybe our economic dependence on China makes it impossible for us to complain. If that's the case, then our troubles have only begun.

Image courtesy of Reuters.

Microsoft Bullies Users Into Office 365 Services

Microsoft has confirmed Office 2013 licenses will be locked to one PC and one PC only, halting transfers of the office suite software to replacement computers and perhaps forcing users to use its new Office 365 services.

If you install Office 2013 on any PC, that licensed copy belongs to that computer for the life of that PC. $Deity help you if you lose that computer to hardware failure, age, or theft, because pfft! there goes your copy of Office 2013, even if you have the box with the license key and the installation discs.

This revelation has caused, as one might expect, some consternation in the tech community, if only because it puts the smackdown on the long-established practice of moving copies of Office to another computer when the need arose. Typically, a copy of Office outlasts at least one of my PCs, because the functionality of Office from one version to another isn't usually great enough to warrant a switch upon hardware upgrade. Especially for the price tag of Office.

Apparently, Microsoft is on to cheapskates like me, and is beginning to enforce corporate-like licensing on consumers now.

Just The Facts

Here's what PC World's Tony Bradley learned when he reached out to Microsoft.

"I asked Microsoft for clarification, and I received this official response: 'Office 365 Home Premium works across up to 5 devices (Windows tablets, PCs or Macs) and can be transferred across devices. The Office 2013 software is licensed to one computer for the life of that computer and is non-transferable.'"

The wording of Microsoft's response to Bradley is noteworthy: the software giant is clearly telegraphing that if you want ease-of-portability, then you should move to the subscription-based Office 365 model.

But that strategy makes little sense: while it is true you can have access to Office 365 on multiple computers at the same time, that's not the same thing as being able to take the one copy of Office you own and move it to another computer, deleting the copy on your first PC or allowing the copy of Office to deprecate when the machine is taken to the nearest recycling center.

Users pretty much get the fact that you have to buy multiple licenses of Office (or other locally installed software) when using it at the same time. But now Microsoft is saying that their software is forever tied to the first PC on which you install Office 2013.

Curiously, Microsoft is trying to justify this move with the somewhat whiney excuse that they've done this before.

"Office 2013 has the same licensing provisions around transferability as the equivalent Office 2010 package, which was the package purchased by most Office 2010 customers," the company told Bradley.

Um, not quite. Computerworld did some digging and learned that while there was language in Office 2010's EULA that seemed to limit one licensed copy to one PC, there were allowances in the legalese made for shifting from one PC to another.

"'You may reassign the license to a different device any number of times, but not more than one time every 90 days,' stated the EULA for Office Home & Student 2010, the most popular consumer version of that edition. 'If you reassign, that other device becomes the 'licensed device.' If you retire the licensed device due to hardware failure, you may reassign the license sooner.'"

That kind of language has been removed from Office 2013's EULA.

Like A Good Neighbor?

When I examined the pricing differences of Office 2013 versus Office 365 earlier this month, I was making the presumption that when you used a copy of Office 2013, you would be able to use that copy of Office 2013 for a hypothetical full three-year period.

Three years is a reasonable time to expect a computer to run and still be fast enough to keep up with the software Joneses, but it's not unreasonable to expect the inevitable loss of PCs due to breakdowns, theft, or disasters. That skews the pricing model a bit for the single-PC users that would have otherwise benefited from using the local versions of Office 2013.

If you recall, for one PC using the various Office flavors for three years, the cost breakdowns were:

Office 365 Home Premium: $299.97
Office Home and Student: $139.99
Office Home and Business: $219.99
Office Professional: $399.99

But if you factor in the possibility of a PC replacement (planned or otherwise) within those three years, for whatever reason, you get a pricing model like this:

Office 365 Home Premium: $299.97
Office Home and Student: $279.98
Office Home and Business: $439.98
Office Professional: $799.98

So, if you have any plans to update your hardware soon, Office 365 looks like a much better bet, unless you are using the version of Office with the least features, Home and Student. And, if you are worried in any way about unplanned loss, then suddenly Office 365's subscription plan looks suddenly like an insurance policy.

Microsoft is clearly trying to push users into getting connected to its own ecosystem, hoping Office 365 and the just-released to the public Outlook.com will tie users into their services just as Google/Android holds its users in quiescent (and revenue generating) thrall.

The key difference is that while Google uses the freemium model for attracting users, Microsoft seems to be applying the use-this-or-pay-more model.

Charming.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Buying An iPhone 5? Sell Your Old Phone At uSell.com

This post is sponsored by uSell, a price-comparison website that helps you find the best price when it's time to sell your iPhone, Blackberry, smartphones, and other used electronics. Find reputable buyers for your used devices on uSell. #selliPhone

Congrats on your snazzy new iPhone 5. The retina display is brilliant, the camera takes fantastic pictures, and the battery is the envy of all your friends. But now what do you do with your old phone?

Options For Your Existing Devices

The obvious answer is "sell it," but where? And how much should you charge?

You could sell it to your mobile carrier, but you won't make market rate, particularly if your phone is more than a few months old. Auctions are a popular option for the adventurous, because they pay better than the carriers do, but they're a gamble. Buyers change their minds, you might price your phone too high or low. Even if you do find a buyer at an agreeable, you still have to worry about packing, shipping and payment.

If you want to skip the auction circus and get on with enjoying your new iPhone, you could always sell your phone to a reseller. Resellers take the guesswork out of device sales, quoting you a fair, fixed price, and often provide free packaging and shipping. You send the phone, they send a check, and you both part ways happy.

The trick with resellers is finding the best deal. One reseller may be able to move AT&T phones, but have trouble with Verizon devices, for example, so payouts between resellers can vary by more than $100 for the same device.

uSell.com: A Reseller-Comparison Shopping Engine

That's where uSell.com comes in. uSell partners with dozens of resellers and helps you find the right one for your device. Just answer a few questions about your iPhone's model, carrier and condition, and uSell returns a list of resellers that are interested. You can sort the list by uSell's own "best fit," customer reviews, or price.

Those prices are actually pretty good. We checked eBay for sold iPhone 4S listings over the past month, and uSell's reseller offers were extremely competitive. A 64GB Verizon 4S tended to sell for $220 to $285 on eBay, before fees and shipping. uSell found a fee-free $235. The same phone on AT&T's network went for $150 to $320 on eBay, and uSell found us an even $300, with free shipping and no hassle. They even found a buyer for an original 2G iPhone.

Of course, not everyone is trading in an iPhone. if you're stepping up from a different device, you're still covered. uSell partners with resellers for all types of cell phones, as well as tablets, game consoles, cameras, and other electronics.