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Defcad.com Wants To Be the Google of 3D-Printable Guns 225

Posted by timothy from the no-takebacks-either dept.
Sparrowvsrevolution writes that at this year's SXSW, Defense Distributed founder Code Wilson has announced a for-profit spinoff of his gun-printing project, from which people will be able to search for and download gun-related CAD files. "Though the search engine will index all types of files, Wilson says he hopes the group's reputation for hosting politically incendiary content will mean users trust that it won't censor search results. 'When we say you should have access to these files, people believe we mean that,' says Wilson. 'No takedowns. No removals. We'd fight everything to the full extent of the law.' Along with the SXSW announcement, Wilson also released a provocative video where he lays out the plan for Defcad.com and criticizes gun control advocates and 'collusive' 3D printing companies like Makerbot."
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Defcad.com Wants To Be the Google of 3D-Printable Guns More

Defcad.com Wants To Be the Google of 3D-Printable Guns

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  • My first thought (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ukab the Great ( 87152 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @10:18AM (#43148511)

    is who would name their kid "Code". My second thought is "duh, I'm on Slashdot".

  • No takedowns. No removals. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @10:23AM (#43148577)

    Hmm .. is history about to repeat itself? I seem to remember there used to be a bunch of mp3 hosting sites that aren't here now. I'm guessing that this guy will be headed to oblivion once people start up-loading 3d scans of copywrited material - whether it is from a gun manufacturer or from Disney.

    Good luck finding somewhere safe to host the servers.

    • Copies of Kalashnikov's work are made pretty much every place on the globe already.
    • The question is whether he meant exactly what he said, or if he failed to think it all the way through. Did he mean that any 3D printing file that anyone uploads to their site, even if the copyright on the file belongs to someone else would remain on their site until a court orders them to take it down? Which is the literal interpretation of the words he said. Or did he mean that as long as the file uploaded to their site is not owned by someone who requests they take it down they will leave it up, no matte

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        to the full extent of the law.

        I took that to mean that he would fight. Not that he would necessarily be innocent or win. For all I know he may be taking an extreme stance on " [stuff] needs to be free"

        However also from TFA this new site is meant as a revenue generating source - most likely for himself ("a guys gotta eat") so I am more inclined to believe that he is on more of an egotistical/screw you stance than flowers and cute ponies [wielding AK-47's].

        • I agree that it reads like he would fight every attempt to take anything down from the site, but it could mean a much more pragmatic approach. It could even mean that they would take an approach that would make them only barely distinguishable from the sites he was criticizing as too PC. My hope that his meaning is a somewhat combative, pragmatic approach: if they know the law is against them hosting the file, they will take it down; if they believe that the law allows them to host the file, they will fight

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          However also from TFA this new site is meant as a revenue generating source - most likely for himself ("a guys gotta eat") so I am more inclined to believe that he is on more of an egotistical/screw you stance than flowers and cute ponies [wielding AK-47's].

          Which gets interesting because DMCA takedowns have already occurred [arstechnica.com].

          Since he's selling affiliate links to people who can make it for you or other things, things would get murky very fast.

          Forget guns - they'll quickly become just a tiny part of the site -

    • Except for logos, there's not a lot of gun IP left. A small amount of shifting, and the copyright restraints dissolve. There are more recent patents for semi-automatics, but the technology's been around for generations, so patents have mostly expired.

      Death, however, has been around forever although I think Bezos will try to patent something there, one day soon.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        Except for logos, there's not a lot of gun IP left.

        I don't think its the lack of gun IP that will do him in, rather the opportunity by other parties (such as Disney for want of a better example) to take him down, which *co-incidently* takes down the gun stuff.

        • If he hosts copyrighted material and attracts it for dissemination, then yes, he invites criminal and civil litigation.

          Hosting doesn't necessarily cause a problem. Invitation to piracy steps over several lines depending on the jurisdiction.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

      So then they will go to bittorrent or whatever the next big thing is. While old fogies will just get the stuff off usenet.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Better just move the hosting to North Korea right now and get it over with, lol.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by OzPeter ( 195038 )

      Better just move the hosting to North Korea right now and get it over with, lol.

      You think think the Glorious Leader will welcome with open arms someone who believes his mission is to give uncontrollable numbers of weapons to the masses? I

      • Frankly, yes. He won't particularly care. North Korea, including "reservists" has the biggest standing army on the planet, three times bigger than the US military if you measure it in the number of soldiers.

        Lack of access to guns isn't what's keeping the North Korean people in check, proof positive that a right to bear arms isn't a utopian solution to a dictatorial government.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Sique ( 173459 )
          If the right people have access to guns, and the wrong ones don't, an aboundance of guns can be very stabilizing to a dictatorship. You just have to guarantee that your people always get more guns and ammunition than the rebels.

        • Actually, they don't. Unless you consider their entire male population as reservists but ignore everyone else's. Which they do and we don't.

          Don't let actual knowledge of the situation prevent you from submitting a truthful depiction of the situation or anything, always better to sensationalize and lie.

  • Two great causes that go great together.

    If you're a first amendment activist, you should be opposed to takedown efforts because censorship is bad, whether you're talking about porn, Wikileaks, DeCSS or 3D printer plans for guns.

    And Code (really? Code?) should hook up with the NRA and get their lobbying dollars on his side. After all, 3D printers don't kill people, people WITH 3D printers kill people.

    (Alternate joke: you can take my extrusion depositor when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!)

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I dunno if the NRA would want to be on his side when the copyrighted designs of the gun manufacturers that support them are being posted on his website...

      • Re:NRA: free speech champs (Score:5, Informative)

        by MBGMorden ( 803437 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @11:29AM (#43149285)

        Copyrighted designs aren't really much of a thing in the gun industry. As a matter of fact tons of clones and copies are made of various designs.

        The Mauser bolt action is cloned by countless companies.
        The AR15 design is cloned by at least a few dozen different companies.
        The Colt 1911 design is cloned by Kimber, Rock Island, STI, SVI, Ruger, Remington, S&W, Springfield, Taurus, and about a bazillion more.
        The Beretta 92 design is cloned by both Taurus and Turkey
        The Walther P99 is cloned by Canik.
        The CZ-75 design is cloned by Tanfoglio and Canik.
        The Glock is cloned by Timberwolf
        The Ruger 10/22 is cloned by Volquartsen

        And so forth for many, many models. Gun technology in use today has been nearly perfected for close to 100 years. It truly is more about just making a quality product than the "IP" so many other industries worry about.

      • Re:NRA: free speech champs (Score:5, Informative)

        by ducman ( 107063 ) <`slashdot' `at' `reality-based.com'> on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @12:43PM (#43150141)

        The NRA doesn't represent the gun manufacturers. It's an association of dues-paying individual members.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by TheSkepticalOptimist ( 898384 )

      The problem with Free Speech is that most people have nothing important to say, so they need a gun to make you listen.

      • The problem with Free Speech is that most people have nothing important to say, so they need a gun to make you listen.

        Exactly right. Unfortunately, this is /., so you've been immediately modded as "flamebait."

        The flame you're baiting me with is the fire of truth.

      • The problem with Free Speech is that most people have nothing important to say, so they need a gun to make you listen.

        No, the problem is a demonstrator with a sign using free speech can not stop a tank as happened in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 [wikipedia.org]. Free speech didn't help the 2009–2010 Iranian election protests [wikipedia.org]. And it's not helping much in Syria today. Without firearms to back up free speech free speech means little, is practically useless, and may get demonstrators killed.

        Falcon

        • And yet all those millions of Iraqis with AK-47s didn't change anything in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Maybe your analysis is a little lacking?

  • Frankly Code, no one gives a damn. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Seraphim_72 ( 622457 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @10:37AM (#43148759)
    What you are doing is perfectly legal, has been for years. The plans to build all sorts of guns have been out for ages. The government really doesn't care because making a gun is perfectly legal. Calling it "hosting politically incendiary content" isn't going to make it so. It isn't going to be the Big Bad Government that is going to take you down either, it is the wife of the guy that has one of your designs blow up in his face that is going to soak up every dime you are worth. Go ask Paladin Press how it works, I am sure they will give you an ear full.

    • Re:Frankly Code, no one gives a damn. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @10:47AM (#43148881)

      Calling it "hosting politically incendiary content" isn't going to make it so.

      I'm getting the feeling that we are only talking about this because he is an attention-whore who is slinging around some meaningless words in order to drive traffic to his site.

    • If memory serves, at least the first-gen 3d printed designs were direct adaptations from http://www.cncguns.com/ [cncguns.com] CAD files, and that site has been up with little or no controversy for some years now. I assume that there has been some adaptation since then to support the limitations of 3d printing hardware.

      Yeah, yeah, '3d printers' are magic star-trek replicators from the future, and CNC gear is old-and-busted-industrial-economy-getting-your-hands-dirty; but small scale weapons manufacture really isn't news(

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
      Much easier than trying to get him to "take down" designs would be to swamp it with useless or dangerous ones. To be any use it would have to have a review/rating system; but that could also be gamed, as one sees at Amazon or IMDB, for instance.

    • Re:Frankly Code, no one gives a damn. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sarten-X ( 1102295 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @11:08AM (#43149083) Homepage

      It's not the government that is out to get you, the freedom-loving individual. It's the other freedom-loving individuals, whose freedom and yours have come into conflict. They're the ones who will fight you, and they're the ones who will use the government as a weapon in that fight.

      The government is indeed a brutal tool, but it's a double-edged sword, that will decide for itself who will be struck. That decision is based on the opinions of judges throughout history, who have made decisions on the subjective evidence of whose freedom must be suppressed to bring about the most benefit for society.

      To sway those judges to your favor, promise and demonstrate a benefit to society and respect for the freedom and happiness of others. To turn those judges against you, promise to incite mayhem and subvert government authority, and give others the tools and encouragement to do so.

      • Re:Frankly Code, no one gives a damn. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by CanHasDIY ( 1672858 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @12:55PM (#43150283) Homepage Journal

        It's not the government that is out to get you, the freedom-loving individual. It's the other freedom-loving individuals, whose freedom and yours have come into conflict. They're the ones who will fight you, and they're the ones who will use the government as a weapon in that fight.

        If you're of the persuasion that you have a right to force others (or have the government force others on your behalf) to give up their freedoms so you can have some warm, fuzzy feeling, you do not fit the description of "freedom-loving individual."

    • What you are doing is perfectly legal, has been for years.

      That's very true.

      But it ALSO didn't stop the plans from being yanked from other 3D printing repositories.

      And it ALSO did not stop a printer manufacturer from pulling a 3D printer that he had already rented, and refusing to allow him to rent.

      To me it doesn't matter WHO he is fighting, what matters is that in a short time he has seen very real censorship around this topic and thus exhibited a strong need for what he is providing. So in fact, contrary

  • Interesting intersection of Patent and Copyright (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Erich ( 151 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @10:47AM (#43148877) Homepage Journal
    It's usually hard to copyright a "thing". If you make a thing -- a new type of shelving or gun or glass or pen or chair or whatever -- you can't get a copyright on it, you can maybe get a patent on it.

    So for a CAD file of a gun, the CAD file could be copyrighted... but it would be copyrighted by the author, not by the manufacturer of the gun it was a clone of (unless they were the author, of course). Now, printing out the gun might be manufacturing something covered by patents... but copying the file wouldn't be creating the gun.

    3D printing will sure be interesting from a legal standpoint, it potentially brings copyright and patent law together for just about everything. I would hope that we could establish that CAD files for 3D printers are equal to recipes for the purposes of copyright: a series of steps to create something. But that's certainly not what happened for source code.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sique ( 173459 )
      In this case, it would be probably a design patent they could be infringing on, or a trade dress they violate.

  • Less drama more substance (Score:5, Insightful)

    by h4rr4r ( 612664 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @10:52AM (#43148925)

    How about before you become the google of something you prove that this even exists.

    Show me a working 3d printed gun. Not a lower for an AR, not a magazine, but an actually working 3d printed gun. That means you have to 3d print the parts that go bang. Otherwise you are just 3d printing gun accessories.

    • Re:Less drama more substance (Score:4, Funny)

      by freeze128 ( 544774 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @11:11AM (#43149121)
      He could be the Hank Hill of 3D printing....

      "I sell guns and gun accessories."

    • Re:Less drama more substance (Score:5, Informative)

      by MBGMorden ( 803437 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @11:36AM (#43149341)

      By law the lower for an AR IS the gun. Except for the serialed received every other component of a gun is considered parts.. Its the only part that requires a background check, and under most pending legislation will be the only actual part banned from sale to civilians (largely the same for magazines).

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

        So what?

        A lower without an upper is useless. That means all they have to do is update the law. Making barrels is still a lot harder to do, same with actions. The law is outdated and should regulate the parts that are hardest to produce.

        • Barrels would be a bad choice, because general-purpose parts will do it with some adaptations. A good bit of plumbing will do as a shotgun barrel. No rifling, obviously, but that's only an issue if you care about range.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

            So then make it the receiver.

            That is the part that is considered the gun when dealing with bolt actions.

            Colt should never have been allowed to serialize the lower. You can make a lower out of sheet metal by hand. They are trivial to construct via many methods other than 3d printing.

            • Colt should never have been allowed to serialize the lower. You can make a lower out of sheet metal by hand.

              You can make SOME lower receivers out of sheet metal by hand, but not an AR15 lower. The AK-47 is far easier to duplicate in that regard. Here's a guy that made one out of a shovel . . . http://thebrigade.thechive.com/2012/12/06/diy-shovel-to-ak-47-50-photos/ [thechive.com]

              Anyways, making a gun at home isn't illegal. All that matters is that one part that is necessary for the operation of the gun be serialized as the receiver so that the whole thing can't be sold/mailed. How hard the part is to reproduce isn't an issu

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by c0lo ( 1497653 )

          So what?

          A lower without an upper is useless. That means all they have to do is update the law. Making barrels is still a lot harder to do, same with actions. The law is outdated and should regulate the parts that are hardest to produce.

          You mean... the bullets?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

            No, those are very easy to produce.

            The receiver is machined, not 3d printed. In all other firearms it is considered the firearm.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by c0lo ( 1497653 )
              My bad. I should have asked: the ammo/cartridge? If banned/restricted, can you 3D-print the gun powder and the primer?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

                Gun powder is trivial to make. Especially for old black powder cowboy guns.

                All this stuff was made in the 1800s so by today's standards it is all pretty simple.

          • Bullets are INCREDIBLY easy to make at home. As a matter of fact due to the recent ammo shortages I've been casting my own from scrap lead.

            A GOOD reloading setup that will make ammo as good or better than factory ammo will cost you less than $300. Lee Precision actually makes loading kits that will do nearly as good a job (though with a lot more effort and frustration) for around $25.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by c0lo ( 1497653 )

              Bullets are INCREDIBLY easy to make at home. As a matter of fact due to the recent ammo shortages I've been casting my own from scrap lead.

              A GOOD reloading setup that will make ammo as good or better than factory ammo will cost you less than $300. Lee Precision actually makes loading kits that will do nearly as good a job (though with a lot more effort and frustration) for around $25.

              My bad. I was thinking the entire cartridge. Suppose you no longer find gun powder/caps...

              • Powder is fairly easy to make. Charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter mixed and ground in the proper ratios. Granted that's traditional black powder not the smokeless powder we mostly use today, but it still goes bang just fine.

                As an ignition source ("caps") there are several options. Homemaking a berdan primer would be possible as the anvil is in the case (which can be reused - most people don't reload berdan primed cases as they're a hassle but in this scenario they'd be easier). All you'd need is something

        • The law is outdated and should regulate the parts that are hardest to produce.

          BS. The law needs to be pulled out from the law books by it's roots and left to shrivel and die.

          Falcon

    • Re:Less drama more substance (Score:4, Informative)

      by L3370 ( 1421413 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @12:03PM (#43149681)
      The lower receiver is the only part of the gun thats considered a gun by the law, and for good reason. It houses the magazine and the fire controls (safety, select fire--if applicable, trigger) and everything connects to it.

      For a car analogy, its the frame and the engine. If you can make receivers, you're in the league with Ford and Toyota. If you make buttstocks and compensators, you're that company that sells import tuner supplies and curb feelers for gigantic low-riders.

  • Immediate Goal (Score:4, Funny)

    by carrier lost ( 222597 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2013 @11:01AM (#43149017) Homepage
    I want to be the Google of naming things "The Google of ..."
  • What is this? The dailymail [dailymail.co.uk]? Front page story without substance?

    3d printable guns? As in water guns for kids? Or do you mean real guns? You can't even make a 3d printer hotend with a 3d printer, how would printing a working gun be possible?

    What's next, search engines with 3d printable nuclear warheads?

  • 1. There are plenty of people with access to a machine shop and the correct skills to build a gun right now. And they can build *all* the parts, including ones exposed to gasses and pressures different than ambient air. This adds nothing new.

    2. If in fact home 3D printing gets to the point that you can actually manufacture a working gun (not just a "part") then it is also going to be able to manufacture replacement car parts, replacement parts for other machines, or entire machines. Then they are going to g

  • Seed autonomous, self-powered file servers throughout the world. Allow anyone to upload/download information from them. Then there will be no way to ever limit information again.

  • Makerbot will not me getting my money however, closed their source and censorship. That says to me they are really not interested in my business.

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