3D Printer Jailbreaking -- Stratasys says NO!

[Brian_Krassenstein]

Stratasys is asking the US Copyright Office to deny a proposal that would make it legal to “jailbreak” 3D printers to allow the use of third party materials. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Section 1201, makes it a a felony to tamper with "an effective means of access control" for a given device. In the case of 3D printers, the access control in question relates to processes which check to see that the consumables used in a 3D printer have been made or approved by the manufacturer. Now a group called the Digital Right to Repair Coalition is taking Stratasys to task and saying the owners of 3D printers should have the right to modify or repair the machines they own without fear of prosecution. You can read the whole story here: http://3dprint.com/62247/stratasys-copyright-materials/

[ckirmser]

Personally, I think Stratasys is wrong on this count.

Fine, if they want to say using unapproved materials voids your warranty, but to say that an owner doesn't have complete rights over what he has bought is ridiculous.

But, I'm also one who says, if you manage to buy the Mona Lisa, it is yours on which to add a moustache.

[Roxy]

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Section 1201, makes it a a felony to tamper with "an effective means of access control" for a given device.

If I had a Stratasys, I would probably end up a felon.

[ssayer]

Same here...

[Wolfie]

Easiest solution of them all. Requires no laws to be broken. Requires no laws to change. The solution? Don't buy a Stratasys. Game over.

[richardphat]

Whistle ........ mjol... what do you think about this

[ssayer]

Whistle ........ mjol... what do you think about this

Only problem with that... Say you're a newb... you see this nice shiny printer. You buy it, use it for a while, and then figure out that you've been hustled and can only use their stuff, even though everybody else's works just fine and there is a lot more and different stuff available if you can use somebody else's stuff...

[curious aardvark]

Invalidate the warranty - fine.

But you can't stop someone from modifying hardware they actually own.

Where does that stop ?
ford prosecuting someone for changing their own tires ?

[postmahomeson]

question isn't Repetier software shut down or something , because is it legal of that lets say in Canada ( outside of Quebec ) or will it be shut down the pirate bay.
i honestly just want to have some honest legit way to do thing without any piracy ( i mean legally why would companies even have to put in such devices to restrict? , isn't that a monopoly? )

[Wolfie]

We are not talking about software piracy here. We are talking about breaking the software that the machine came with so to allow it to use filament from anywhere, not just them.

The equivalent would be, lets say you buy a brand new Toyota Corola. And Toyota put a special gas fill port on it so you could ONLY fill the tank at Toyota approved stations. What we are talking about here is modifying the computer in the Corola so it would ignore the custom gas fill connection and allow you to put a standard gas port on it so you could fill it ay any station of your choosing.

Nobody is stealing any software here. They are modifying it so it will not prevent filament being used from non-approved sources (that probably paid a fee to Stratosys to become "approved" I would bet).