AUSTIN, Texas—During what he called his first ever press conference, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson announced Tuesday that he would continue to comply with a federal court order forbidding him from internationally publishing CAD files of firearms . Wilson said he would also begin selling copies of his 3D-printed gun files for a "suggested price" of $10 each.

The files, crucially, will be transmitted to customers "on a DD-branded flash drive" in the United States. Wilson also mentioned looking into customer email and secure download links.

Previously, Defense Distributed had given the files away for free, globally.

"I’m happy to become the iTunes of 3D guns if I can’t be Napster," Wilson said, adding that anyone can submit a file to sell on his platform, where they will receive 50 percent of the sales proceeds. Wilson said files uploaded to the platform must "be liquid info," or things like CAD files, blueprints, and schematics. He reiterated users cannot resell materials they don't possess the rights to and that Defense Distributed has already put the infrastructure in place to review user submissions.

Throughout the event, Wilson would periodically check his phone in order to see recent Defense Distributed pay-what-you-want sales. "I've seen a guy pay $15, lots of people paying $1, others are $10, $8 for the AR-15 file," he told the assembled press. "It's very generous, just people who want to support us. See, $0, a free-rider—give me a cent." He said the company has completed "a few hundred" pay-what-you-want transactions thus far.

Wilson reiterated the move to sell is not motivated in any way by profit and that Defense Distributed remains financially stable. "We’re not desperate for cash, we’re just covering costs," he said. "I remember when Radiohead did this, they said they didn’t make real money for this… I don’t expect to either. There’s plenty of people who don't want this, don't care, until they see the Attorney General of Pennsylvania doesn’t want you to have it."

Throughout his initial statement and while fielding questions from the press, Wilson maintained his main motivation was First Amendment-related. He called out companies like Facebook and Amazon for previously censoring users from posting Defense Distributed file links (the former) or taking down books for sale (the latter) that contained code for the Liberator, the company's blueprinted handgun.

"Today I want to clarify, anyone who wants these files will get them—I’ll sell them, I'll ship them," he continued. "The free exchange of these ideas will never be interrupted. I’m also inviting the public to share their own files and share the profit with me.

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Starting pistol

As Ars has reported, Defense Distributed is a Texas-based company involved in a years-long lawsuit with the Department of State over publication of those files and making them available to foreigners. The company runs DEFCAD, perhaps the best-known online repository of gun files.

After a surprising June 2018 settlement with the Department of Justice appeared to end that five-year legal battle with the government, DEFCAD reposted the files on July 27, a few days earlier than the company had initially said it would restore them.

With the settlement, the federal government essentially agreed to modify the relevant export laws. Defense Distributed would be allowed to publish, the DOJ would pay $40,000 of DD's legal fees, and the case would be over. The Second Amendment Foundation announced the settlement on July 10.

But earlier this month, a group of states led by Washington sued the Department of State, claiming that allowing the files to be made available violated a federal administrative law.

That settlement was then overturned in a ruling by a Seattle judge, US District Judge Robert Lasnik. On Monday, Judge Lasnik ordered that the files must stay offline in order to comply with American export law.

By selling them only to people in the United States, Wilson and Defense Distributed have found a way to still comply with the judge's order.

"That's the easiest thing for us to do, the legal thing for us to do, that's always been our mission as a company," he said. "You have a right to have these things; we have a right to give them."

A press representative for Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson did not immediately respond to Ars' request for comment.

"Hysterical"

Wilson remained seated at a table for the duration of the press conference with an unnamed Defense Distributed employee by his side. He said in a matter-of-fact tone that he has been successfully fundraising off these recent efforts to shut him down. He has already raised $200,000 (about half of which he said came via cryptocurrencies) and expects more to come. Defense Distributed's stated fundraising goal is $400,000.

"The judges yesterday, besides being hysterical and all that, did not suspend [our operation] but wanted to unauthorize it," he said. "Many attorneys have been saying we’ve been stopped; no one can print a gun at home. This is the stuff I had to read yesterday. But of course you can download this stuff, all this press coverage ensured it’ll be online forever. So the point I’m going to make: this order stopping us from giving away [files], prevented us from selling, emailing, et cetera—I will be doing all those things. My congrats to the attorneys general for saving America. A lot of this to me is principle. For many years I chose not to sell these files, because I’m an open source activist. I believed in demonstrating there’s a right to put this in the public domain."

When a reporter asked why the Seattle judge's order was "hysterical," Wilson noted that Judge Lasnik seemingly did not understand that the files are already out there.

"He accepts the plaintiff's article that the world would end if he didn’t act," Wilson added. "But this already happened—we’ve lived in a world where you can download these files from anywhere. His description that 'some cybernaut can find these in the dark recesses in the Internet,'—they’re discoverable within 30 seconds of Googling."

Wilson vowed to appeal the Seattle ruling at the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

"You can read our briefs to see our arguments, and we're confined to those in the appeals court—pretty standard stuff regarding the First Amendment, Second Amendment," he said. "It's pretty easy stuff to understand if you're a federal judge, though maybe not."

UPDATE Wednesday 12:34am ET: In a series of encrypted text messages sent to Ars, Wilson confirmed that he was blocking Internet users who tried to pay him from some states "to humiliate them."

However, he reiterated that he was sending all files via USB stick, and had already put some in the mail: a total of $20,000 in the first day of sales.

"I'll add other channels, as the judge permitted," he wrote.

In a statement sent Tuesday evening to Ars, Washington Attorney General said: "I trust the federal government will hold Cody Wilson, a self-described 'crypto-anarchist,' accountable to that law. If they don't, President Trump will be responsible for anyone who is hurt or killed as a result of these weapons.”

His spokeswoman, Brionna Aho, declined to respond to Ars' further questions.