In march, I reported that The Pirate Bay added a new category of torrents dedicated to physibles.  Physibles are files that describe 3D objects for 3D printers. I was also betting that we would soon hear aboutthe first litigation about copyright and 3D objects.

It did not take long.   Thomas Valenty designed two figurines inspired from the famous Warhammer game.  He shared his physibles on thingverse, which is the reference site for physibles.  End of May 2012, Games Workshop, the flag ship company for game figurines such as Warhammer or AD&D, sent a takedown notice to Thingverse using the DMCA.  Thingverse removed the physibles. 

We will soon more and more such cases.  It will be simple when the gimmick is a good replicate of a copyrighted item.  But what if it is slightly different?   See the ongoing, world wide, copyright battle between Apple and Samsung regarding the shape of the Galaxy versus iPad…