When anti-piracy campaigns compare downloading a movie to stealing they miss the essential difference: that stealing is removing a possession from somebody else while downloading was just making a copy. But besides the moral/legal implications of downloading a movie, what would happen if you could actually download physical objects.

Thanks to 3D printer technology and 3D printers that are getting increasingly cheaper soon we will be able to download and print 3D objects in our own homes.

The piracy of physical objects is close than we think. A couple of days ago The Pirate Bay just announced that they are going to start hosting Physibles, downloadable models for constructing 3D objects.

They wrote in an statement:

We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare parts for your vehicles. You will download your sneakers within 20 years.

The current problem with the anti-piracy laws and the battle against Megauploads and similar services is not that download a digital file is something wrong, but that doing this is against of the concept of the market as we know it. It is a logical process, why buy something that you can have it for free. Besides the moral implications of you shouldn't steal, what we need is a change on the market.

What will happen if (when) someday you will be able to download physical elements, like the newest phone, or the expensive replacement part for your car. The whole idea of making/transporting/selling objects will fail.

Should we keep fighting against innovations and new forms of sharing, or we just need to look into how to shape the market for a new reality.

What The Pirate Bay is doing is an step forward into the future, against the market and against intellectual property. Because 3D objets are not something new, and The Pirate Bay already has some competitors like Shapeways and Thingiverse, we will wait tosee big changes coming in. ¿What the old media lobbyist will say then?.

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