I used to have a ZCorp printer and we would use ingredients that cost $3.00 to do what they were charging over $600 for.
Wait a sec, didn’t I read precisely that happening -some time ago- in…? Oh, I see.
“Makers”, Cory Doctorow
http://craphound.com/makers/about/
This one really was an easy one to see coming, wasn’t it? 
Wait a minute, have they applied DRM to inkjet printers? Because there’s a rich third-party market for ink I’m sure the manufacturers would happily monopolize. While they’re at it they could make refilling the cartridge impossible.
Why doesn’t this moot the entire case, and the Gevalia thing too?
I write separately to emphasize that our holding should not be limited to the narrow facts surrounding either the Toner Loading Program or the Printer Engine Program. We should make clear that in the future companies like Lexmark cannot use the DMCA in conjunction with copyright law to create monopolies of manufacturer goods for themselves[…]
Good question, don’t have an answer.
Yes, I do own my 3d printer. (Well, not yet but hopefully soon.)
No, the manufacturer can have hundreds times more lawyers and that won’t stop me from using whatever feedstock I please in my machine.
The world is ours, not theirs. We don’t have to beg for stinkin’ permissions.
I’m not terribly worried, and am actually inclined to believe their argument that their customers probably aren’t clamoring for third party material.
Stratasys printers are orders of magnitude more expensive than your average enthusiast fused filament deposition printer (which are almost exclusively based on the same well-documented technology).
Most of their customers with the cash to drop hundreds of thousands on a Stratasys are looking for very consistent results, and from a corporate perspective, they are probably willing to pay for the materials that facilitate that.
For example, we have discussed using recycled and respun filament on our 3D printers, and the conclusion is that the savings aren’t worth the potential problems that can come from bubbles, inconsistent diameters, off-colors, material degradation, etc. In essence, our printers may as well be DRMed, as we essentially only really run filament from a single manufacturer (not totally true, as we just added glow-in-the-dark and woodfill from a second company to our offerings).
In principle, screw these guys; but in practice this will play out just like the Keurig debacle. The majority of the people who buy into the ecosystem won’t care, and those who do have a healthy ecosystem to support alternatives. The biggest difference is that Sratasys printers are actually really good (unlike crappy K-Cup coffee).
Think forward. The $100,000 machine of today is a cheap ebay score of tomorrow. It’s then when the replacement materials will become truly important.
Choosing the type or brand of filament that I use in my* 3D printer is akin to choosing what songs I load onto my MP3 player. The manufacturer of the MP3 player doesn’t get to dictate the artists or studios who’s music I can listen to and, by the same token, I can choose the material I extrude through my 3D printer. Void the warranty, take away support – by all means. But the * above denotes the printer belongs to me once I purchase it. Aside from this, they should embrace a diverse community of hackers and makers who may use your device instead of being their adversary. The rewards will be far greater than any imaginary drawbacks.
Stratasys? Never gunna happen. Their primary customers are medical institutions and engineering firms. Buying first-party consumables was already factored into their decision to spend $200k on a printer.
Too true. No consumer sympathy there to be had, I’m sure. Hopefully the possible far-reaching ramifications will be seen by the copyright office.
Hah hah… not going to happen. Not only is the company not interested, that community would never trust them.
The original MakerBots were derived from and nearly identical in design to open-source/open-hardware RepRap designs. MakerBot then turned their printers closed-source and started patenting iterations they made on their printers. And keep in mind, this community is one that only came into existence because the original patents on this type of 3D printing expired.
MakerBot has been beaming a big FU to the printing community since long ago. Trying to DRM in filament is far from unexpected.
NSA has turned the US copyright office into a sick joke. Now that they have been caught openly stealing industrial secrets (re: airbus in germany , petrobrazil in brazil) and handing them to american corperations to copyright them , most of the world is looking at the office as little more than a theives den for americans only.
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