Modus Operandi

We're from the future, and we have a proposal


Humor me a moment, and allow me to elaborate.


Improbablecog designs products to be produced, not through the usual methods of mass manufacturing, but for rapid fabrication.
Items are created in a computer with modeling software, and then converted from bits to atoms using 3D printing technologies. By using this method, an item can be replicated a thousand times, or only once. There are no molds, there is no casting, there are only robots building each item from the physical pixels of the material required.

This means that these things made of matter are not much different than any other piece of 'intellectual property' such as music, movies, or microcode.

The last couple decades have seen massive upheaval in all traditional industries that deal in products where the production and distribution channels can be replaced for next to nothing by the internet. In the music industry, MP3 sharing made music easier to trade and replicate than it was to buy. This spawned endless battles between the gatekeepers of music, represented largely by the RIAA, and the mushroom-like growth of filesharing sites that seemed to only double in number for every one that was struck down. When video technology reached the same point, those battles were repeated all over again, with the MPAA filling the role of embattled defender of this dying perception: that bits are a product.

In the software industry these issues were perhaps dealt with much earlier, given that code was always in an easily replicable form. Computers make copies, that's just how they work. Nevertheless, this did not ease the fervor of the battles against piracy, but they just brought out the big guns of digital lockdown before the music or movie industries even realized that they sell software too.
In information technology there were also those of different philosophical opinion who built software free of legal or technological restrictions under various versions of open source licenses. Software which could be shared and modified by its user, and would often flourish due to lack of barriers to its prolific replication.

So now along comes 3D printing, or rapid fabrication. You may not have heard of it before now, but it won't be long until there are few left unaware of it's presence. It's destined to spawn a whole new generation of battles over piracy of the bits used to replicate physical objects.

But here at Improbablecog, we're already living in the future.


So as a new experiment in business model, we will start offering some items with the option to either purchase as a single physical product, or contribute towards a set bond price to release it into the the public domain under a Creative Commons: Attribution Share Alike license. Once the bond is met, the 3D files used to create the item will be made available free to download at this website and from Thingiverse, the library of open source hardware. Released items will also be uploaded to Shapeways, the 3D printing company used to manufacture all improbablecog products, where anyone who wishes can print them at cost!
They can be modified, mashed up, resold, printed by the one or by the dozen, inserted into your game, movie, or art. With only two restrictions: you must share anything created with the models in kind, and you must attribute creation of the original design to us.

All this for just the price of the bond, held in trust until the amount is fulfilled, and returned to you if the required amount is not reached by its deadline. We'd love to be able to do this entirely for free, of course, but even design-primates need to eat ::)