Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2015/03/23/demystifying-copyright-licensi.html
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Take a technology, any kind. Let the lawyers in. Voila, what started as a simple tech turns into a convoluted mess of paperwork and nonunderstandable terminology that makes quantum physics look easy and obvious… and that’s before international differences get involved.
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It’s a general pattern of human history in which someone finds a new way to be free from existing limitations, whether they’re natural or human-imposed, and then someone else comes along to try to lock it down, restrict it, make money off of it, or ban it.
See also: discovering/settling uninhabited lands, creating new inventions, creating new forms of entertainment, creating new political systems, medical breakthroughs, human rights, agricultural technology, et cetera ad infinitum.
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And that’s why need labs-in-a-briefcase, 3d printers and CNC mills, molecular assemblers, and all sorts of electronic hacking devices. Because the ones who try to lock down and restrict the freedom bearing things should have as difficult task as possible.
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Or to put it in Doctorow-material-terms, we need printcriminals and hardened logic.
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More accurately, we need hardened printcriminals and hardened logic. 
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Now just to get totally twisted, a 3D printer converts the original file into another type file in order for the printer to create the part. It does not print directly from the original file; therefore the original file is not copied which by definition would result in a copywrite violation. If anything, the scanned file is an STL formatted file, which would be a derivative, therefore eligible for fair use. Even if you downloaded an STL file that you did not create , it becomes a derivative the instant it causes a 3D print machine file to be created.
My head hurts.
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