The 3-D Printing Pirates Who Could Render SOPA Meaningless

What will happen in terms of IP rights and piracy when 3-D printed objects become commonplace?

Pirate Bay has labeled these 3-D objects "physibles," "data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical," and suggests that in the near future it's files of physibles that'll be the hottest pirated data online, in the same way music, movies, and TV shows are nowadays. That's because the file for a physible is effectively the recipe for making the final object--which could quite possibly be a handbag, a mug, or ultimately something as complex as a sneaker. The legal and intellectual wrangling goes like this: If you've got a sophisticated 3-D printer on your desk, sometime around 2020, say, pirating a physible from a site like Pirate Bay and then printing it out is almost the same as stealing the object from a store. Almost. Because no physical "theft" has happened, and you're merely borrowing the idea, the IP. Yet you are still denying the company that originally came up with the idea any payment. That argument is at the core of the SOPA/PIPA debate, and it's partly why the U.S. just crashed Megaupload's party so very enthusiastically.