It's ridiculous that this is even being discussed. The people proposing the bill must have zero understanding of how a 3D printer works.
It makes as much sense as requiring saw manufacturers to implement protections that restrict what can be cut out with a saw.
Or pen manufacturers being required to enforce copyright.
Any form of this bill will 100% fail to attain its stated objective, while having horrendous not-quite-unintended consequences.
And in the end, what's to stop someone from assembling an unlicensed 3D printer to make unlicensed prints? That's how the industry literally began.
(Not to mention: what do they think would happen to the hundreds of millions of existing "dumb" 3D printers? They won't disappear because there's a law).
Sigh.
> Any form of this bill will 100% fail to attain its stated objective, while having horrendous not-quite-unintended consequences.
California gun laws in a nutshell.
> what do they think would happen to the hundreds of millions of existing "dumb" 3D printers?
Hey, my printer might be going up in value.
>And in the end, what's to stop someone from assembling an unlicensed 3D printer to make unlicensed prints?
You really don't have to go that far. A very high quality control board (eg. an original Prusa) is like 90$ and cheap ones go for 25$.
You could buy the licensed printer and swap the board. Or maybe even just flash the firmware on the licensed printer