Fowler, J. (2013, April 28)
Manufacturing
Intellectual property (IP) copyright laws are important to protect the quality standards of manufactured items as well as their financial benefit to the IP owner. It is also important to consider the ethical factors that are involved in the processing of manufactured items and their intellectual property. Manufacturing 3-D printed items pose a number of ethical considerations including copyright infringement, trademarks, and ethical dilemmas regarding whether or not it is even clear who might be liable for potentially trying to copyright or trademark something that is not their own. 3-D printing is a very interesting and unconventional way of design that sometimes causes disruption because it is a system that often creates intangible products that can make it difficult to center in on whom the original work should be credited. It also leads to ethical issues regarding how of much copyrights actually cover and protect. It poses ideas on whether it is ethical to create parameters within copyright infringement if the original idea of design does not belong to another person or if it was an originally shared idea. Products that are manufactured and copyrighted in 3-D printing can cause ethical issues that make it difficult to center in on the utilitarian of the product expansion to evolve science and technology.
One of the leading ethical issues involved with 3-D printing is the concept of legal landscape copyright. This is a prevalent ethical issue because it creates a stigma that lawsuits legal matters in terms of dealing with 3-D printing issues. There is more of a concern in terms of the development of the social norms, rewards, and social structure around open-source projects. Ethically speaking this makes it difficult to determine if copyrighting 3-D print design is truly for comprehensive protection for artist and technical engineers. It seems as though the larger companies being those of the stakeholders including businesses, larger companies, and massive investors are the ones who truly copyrights and manufacturing are important to. It draws away from protecting the original rights and ideas of those people who create the concepts and designs behind 3-D printing. In a recent article titled “Understanding copyrighting” it states that “American copyright owners are increasingly becoming more vulnerable to piracy and expropriation abroad and subject to inadequate protection of their issues”.
Another ethical issue pertaining to 3-D manufacturing and copyrighting involves how large companies and manufactures put forth the design layouts and accessibility for the 3-D prints. In terms of the ethics behind the concept of manufacturing 3-D prints sometimes it violates the original designer’s concept to be taken out of context by the consumer. It then makes it difficult to determine where ethically it is wrong for the consumer to recreate an original design or idea of something without violating the copyright behind the technical engineer. The term copyright signifies a descriptive term being that “one has the right to make copies that can benefit the original designer under the rights of the law” but how much does that truly cover in terms of both consumer and the original technical designer. It poses an ethical debate on whether copyrights and manufacturing should produce costly benefits or whether it should be more so regarded in terms of sole protection. In all, being able to manufacture and copyright intellectual copyright laws should be important to protect the rights of the technical designer of the product and to expand the lively hood of science and technology for new and innovative evolution.
3D Printed Guns
While the second amendment allows for the use and private ownership of guns, the Supreme Court ruled, in 2008, during the court case District of Columbia vs. Heller, that “gun control measures were not prohibited” (Little). However, the limitations of the Second Amendment are not yet defined, so the duty ethics are defined only by current, incomplete gun control regulations that do not yet apply to 3D-printed, unregulated, plastic guns and bullets (Little). While the large scale manufacture of plastic guns is possible, the current problem to their public release and implementation actually relies on the chemical combination of gunpowder, or its substitute (Little). So far, that yet cannot be 3D printed. So, the real question is this, do we find a way to infiltrate 3D printers and prevent them from printing unregulated guns? And if so, what “Big Brother” measures will be necessary to utilize that? Or, do we attempt to create a better market not only for gun sales, but also regulations to those whom qualify for them?
We could expand the duty ethics of the current regulations regarding age, purpose, type of gun, felony status, ammunition sales, etc. The fact of the matter remains that 3D printers are cheap, will be popular and can manufacture guns and bullets. So perhaps, as Rory, mentions, we shouldn’t try to regulate 3D printers, but instead introduce gun control measures into their manufacture and sales (Little). As past technologies have been implemented, members of society were certainly worried about the crimes that could be committed with them. They however, did not place a moratorium on the technology, much to the utilitarian’s delight, but created regulations for the specific crimes that criminals would do with the technologies. The fault lies with man, not with the machine. In this case, let’s not punish the 3D printer or the manufacturing sector, but create laws to punish the criminals who misuse the technologies.
We could expand the duty ethics of the current regulations regarding age, purpose, type of gun, felony status, ammunition sales, etc. The fact of the matter remains that 3D printers are cheap, will be popular and can manufacture guns and bullets. So perhaps, as Rory, mentions, we shouldn’t try to regulate 3D printers, but instead introduce gun control measures into their manufacture and sales (Little). As past technologies have been implemented, members of society were certainly worried about the crimes that could be committed with them. They however, did not place a moratorium on the technology, much to the utilitarian’s delight, but created regulations for the specific crimes that criminals would do with the technologies. The fault lies with man, not with the machine. In this case, let’s not punish the 3D printer or the manufacturing sector, but create laws to punish the criminals who misuse the technologies.