Study On Copyright Issues About 3D Printing

Technology is always related to Intellectual Property ("IP") Law and keeps challenging it. Taking the internet as an example, the past ten years have witnessed a series of challenges brought by the development of internet to the IP law. Until now, the concept of "internet plus" is still one of the hottest topics of IP area. However, besides the internet, a new technology, namely 3D printing, is coming to us and opening a new era 3D printing is the common name of addictive manufacturing. Actually, it's not a "new" technology since it was firstly developed in 1980s. But it didn't come into people's daily life until recent times because the 3D printers were quite expensive at that time and not so many 3D files available. But now,3D printers are more affordable and numerous 3D files are available in the internet,3D printing is accessible for general people.However, challenges always come along with opportunities. With 3D printing, one can almost print anything, such as spare parts, toys, clothes, food, cars, buildings, or even medicines and human organs. In the upcoming further, people may be able to print anything they want at home and not go out for shopping any more, which means 3D printing may totally change the marketing style and life style. And it will bring challenges to every area, including the IP law, such as patent law, trademark law, copyright law and the law of trade secrets, etc. limited by the length of the dissertation, this dissertation will only discuss the copyright issues about 3D printing.There are a series of problems for 3D printing and copyright, such as whether 3D files can be copyright work and what kind of work it may fall within? Can it be software? Or whether making a 3D file from a 3D work or printing a 3D object from a 3D file will constitute the "copy" in the copyright law? Whether this is a fair use? So it's necessary to identify each copyright work and those potential copyright infringements.The dissertation will analyse the works that may produced during the 3D printing as well as the potential copyright infringements. The dissertation consists of five chapters, including:The first chapter introduces the 3D printing and how it works and makes a classification of 3D files based on how the 3D file is modelled. This chapter also provides an introduction of the development of 3D printing market, its business opportunity and the challenges brought by 3D printing, especially the challenges for copyright law.The second chapter analyses the works that may be produced during the 3D printing and which category it will fall within. Besides printed 3D object, this chapter mainly discusses whether 3D files can be a copyrightable work based on the classification made in the first chapter and discussed what kind of work it may fall within.The third chapter discusses the authorship and ownership of the copyright works that may arise during the 3D printing.The fourth chapter discusses the potential copyright infringements, mainly analysed whether the "copy" defined in the copyright law includes the dimensional change. This chapter also discusses the fair use and 3D printing, and the liability of the holder of 3D file sharing website.The final chapter makes a conclusion of this dissertation.