We all knew that 3D printing was going to eventually open up a whole world full of red tape and legal battles. Well it looks like we might have our first contender.
Defcad.com launched this week at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, where the group announced their intention to become what many are calling The Pirate Bay of 3D printing.
"Help us turn Defcad into the world's first unblockable, open-source search engine for 3D printable parts," Founder Cody Wilson said in a video on the website.
Defcad started as a non-profit .org website that shared controversial plans to allow 3D printers to manufacture items like gun parts.
The whole “make your own gun” thing didn’t sit too well with the companies who make the 3D printers who have, so far, been the major collectors and distributors of 3D printing plans, especially after the attack in Sandy Hook, where a gunman killed 20 kindergarten students with a semi-automatic rifle.
Defcad offered instructions on how to make your own device that would allow the same kind of semi-automatic rifle to fire as quickly as a full blown machine gun, which are illegal in the United States without special permits.
3D printer manufacturers MakerBot and Stratasys both pulled the plans designed by Defcad down and have refused to allow the plans the be spread.
Which is why Defcad.com is starting.
They are asking for donations to make their dream come true. With 28 days left, the site has 46 backers pledging $12,925, towards their $100,000
Wilson added in the video that the site will be necessary to free people from corporate control to make “important stuff.”
"Not trinkets, not garden gnomes but the things institutions and industries have an interest in keeping from us; access, medical devices, drugs, goods, guns,” Wilson said.
