Sometimes, I wonder if we should even be discussing this.
I'd hate to see the copyright industries manage to kill 3D printing research with crazy laws before it gets very far.
I doubt they could, actually - all they would be able to do would be to move the research out of the US and Europe. When the technology is good enough, the law makers will be forced to allow it back in again or the US will not be able to compete. Then ordinary people will demand access to these printers and it's over.
Hard to kill something you can make yourself already with an Arduino. Sure not trivial but it's already 'out there'.
Great article by Ars. I feel like they're one of the few blogs I read that regularly writes great original content. Virtually everything else I see seems to be weak journalists spinning on press releases spoon fed to them.
I wonder how far are we from the inevitable clash of ideologies as shown in Cory Doctorow's Printcrime: