California’s bill, AB 2047, will not only mandate censorware on all 3D printers; it will also criminalize the use of open-source alternatives. Repeating the mistakes of DRM won’t make anyone safer, but it will hurt innovation in the state and risks a slew of new consumer harms ranging from surveillance to platform lock-in. California must stand with creators and reject this legislation before it’s too late.
From who are these awful ideas in California governing coming from
The tech bros.
The lobbying power of tech companies that profit from proprietary technology and feel threatened by open source. The same people who are behind DRM on everything from ebooks and music to printer inks, and legal restrictions on repairing the devices you own.
Anti-gun/gun control lobby would be my first guess. You can basically print all the serialized parts (the part required for registration) for most any gun then get the rest of the parts and assemble it yourself. The gun parts don’t necessarily even need to be based on an actual manufactured gun, there are designs for completely homemade guns down to the barrel using parts you can easily pick up at any hardware store. Then there are also people who are printing parts that can turn some semi-automatic guns into selectable fully automatic.
Problem is the plans are already in the wild for printing gun parts and for open source printers. I don’t know what good would accomplish to deter people from printing when the person targeted is already motivated enough to print one to begin with.
Nope. This is actually an anti right to repair bill. The gun narrative is just the trojan horse, just like they’re doing with ID verification.
I just remember the earliest opposition to 3D printing becoming readily available to the mass public at cheap prices was the gun control lobby. They’re an “old” enemy to the hobby. I think this is more of an anti-privacy issue than anti-ownership/right to repair, but it is certainly both.
Making a gun is already illegal in California and Washington. This stupid law won’t make any difference. If someone is willing to break the law to make a gun, they probably are not going to follow this law either. 3D printed guns are rarely used to commit crimes anyways. It takes a lot of time and effort to get one to work well.
This is probably about companies like Bamboo Labs wanting an excuse to lock down printers even more. It will also make it difficult or impossible for smaller companies to sell 3D printers in California to get rid of competition.