Physibles Come to Town with First Downloaded, 3D Printed Pirate Bay Ship

The introduction of the Internet, vast amounts of storage, and the ability to copy what we see in high fidelity into an electronic form has exploded the copyright issue wide open on a multitude of fronts. However, the concept of being able to turn something inherently electronic into a tangible product has been out of reach—the stuff of science fiction and Star Trek replicators. This is the impetus behind the “physible,” the working-theory of a 3D model that can be transferred over the Internet, downloaded into a machine, and then rendered into an object.

Well, we may not be at the point that we can download cars or appliances, but the first market that might react to what we can do right now is going to be the toy merchandise market. Why? Because The Pirate Bay just shipped its first “The Pirate Bay Ship” via BitTorrent (a protocol limited to the bits-and-bytes of digital media) and had it printed into a real-life model ship made out of molded plastic.

Just last month, SiliconANGLE reported on the rise of the physible pushed by The Pirate Bay. “We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles,” they wrote when they announced their new 3D printing section.

An article on TorrentFreak reveals the first physible downloaded via BitTorrent and shipped from by Canadian Charles Randall.




As with any other form of expression, the 3D models used to make a product such as a toy boat or an action figure from a movie can be copyrighted. Distributing and printing such figures on a 3D printer without permission could be seen as copyright infringement by the parties who hold the copyright—of course, The Pirate Bay wants people to distribute their boat so that’s not going to happen here. themselves requires that people getting artefacts printed and shipped by them affidavit that they own the copyright for this reason.

I’ve said before, I don’t see a multitude of people using even the MakerBot (a home appliance 3D printer) to make themselves copyrighted marketable toys. What I do see people doing is producing busts, and figures of their favorite characters from TV shows, cartoons, video games, and etc. I can see Makers and gamers using devices such as this to produce models that they can use to produce artwork and scenes—imagine how the model train or battle recreation scene might change fundamentally if they could model their figures, trees, landscape, equipment, etc. on the computer and print it out instead of having to get it cast in metal/plastic elsewhere.

Products like MakerBot still don’t paint the figures, as we can see with the Pirate Bay ship; but I see that as a likely next evolution of the physible.

About Kyt Dotson
