I haven't seen Super 8 yet, but I'm pretty sure it involves entities which [SPOILER ALERT] may not be entirely of this world. Cubes are also involved—metallic cubes that [SPOILER ALERT] may not be entirely of this world.

But even aliens have IP rights, and so when intrepid Baltimore engineer Todd Blatt recreated one of these extraterrestrial cubes in a 3D CAD program and uploaded it to (very cool) 3D printing site Shapeways, lawyers for Paramount Pictures got in touch.

Blatt sells various film-based replicas on Shapeways, including the top from Inception, but this time he received a cease-and-desist letter for his efforts. I asked Blatt what the e-mailed note said, exactly, and he quoted the relevant bit for me:

Paramount has learned that you are selling, distributing, and/or reproducing unauthorized Super 8 replicas on the websites located at http://www.shapeways.com and http://www.therpf.com. We hereby demand that you and all those who have acted in concert with you immediately cease all unauthorized sales, transmission, distribution, display, and/or other utilization of Super 8.

According to Blatt's blog post on the matter, this all happened in less than 24 hours from uploading his design. (Clearly, Paramount's lawyers have access to advanced alien detection tech.)

Many movie studios might not care—or even know about—such a niche product as 3D printing, but in this case Paramount already has already licensed the cube replica to another manufacturer, Quantum Mechanix.

Quantum Mechanix scored the license on June 10, when it announced plans to produce "a full line of collectibles based on the hit movie, Super 8." The collectibles will include "screen-accurate prop replicas, character maquettes, posters, apparel and novelties," prototypes of which will be on display at the huge Comic-Con show in July.

As for Blatt, he doesn't want any trouble. "I'm just a guy, y'know? I don't want to go to court and get sued and all that " he told me via e-mail, so he has complied with the takedown request.

Such takedown requests aren't unheard of, but to date they have been relatively rare. In the next few years, that may well change.

Complicated rights



Is this sort of request legally binding, though? I recently moderated a 3D printing panel panel in Washington, DC where Public Knowledge lawyer Michael Weinberg made a passionate pitch for not buying into the idea that most physical shapes and designs are covered by IP law in the way that, say, the written word is automatically covered.

But even Weinberg admits that Paramount probably does have some legal protections over the cube. From Weinberg's quite interesting analysis:

Doc Brown’s DeLorean would not be protectable by copyright in the world of Back to the Future because it is a useful object. The same could be said for a Star Trek phaser and a Star Wars lightsaber. Within the confines of the respective films, these objects do something: travel back in time, shoot aliens, and cut Darth Vader respectively. In order to protect these inventions, their inventors would need to hike over to the patent office. However, in our world (“reality”) these objects are not useful in a legal sense. They are just props, essentially decorative sculpture. They do not really travel through time, or aggressively focus energy, or do much of anything besides look neat. As a result, they are not protectable by patent. Instead, they most likely fall within the scope of copyright. Ultimately, this means that Paramount is probably legally correct when it asserts that it owns a copyright in the Super 8 cube. Although many of the objects that are created by a 3D printer will fall outside the scope of copyright, the cube does not appear to be one of them.

Of course, even if Paramount does have the rights, Blatt could potentially mount a defense such as fair use; whether or not he would succeed is a different matter.

Bottom line: get ready for a whole new set of skirmishes over IP as the physical world itself is digitized, uploaded, and then printed.