Thanks, Marshall. It's good of you to take the time. I am surprised the numbers are that small, but it's an interesting sampling.
The term Napster fabbing has a nice sound to it, but Napster has a negative connotation. Now that I have looked at your Web site on this topic, I see that you are also using the term peer-to-peer, aka P2P. It has a broader meaning, beyond Napster and music and illegal copying of copyrighted material. P2P/Napster fabbing will be highly disruptive if it allows people the option of circumventing the normal manufacturing and distribution process. P2P is also a buzzword that venture capitalists recognize and should help get their attention.
By any name, Napster fabbing will be resisted by many large corporations, as Napster was. By disintermediating the middleman, however, it is a concept that truly takes advantage of the Internet/Web technology, as opposed to the failed dot-com concepts we have seen. On the other hand, it will raise the importance of intellectual property right protection, privacy, and eventually, payment systems.
Brock Hinzmann
Marshall Burns wrote:
> Hi RP-world, >
>You may remember that in February, James Howison and I presented a paper at >the O'Reilly conference on the idea of Napster fabbing, where we showed that >exchange of 3-D digital designs is already happening on the RP-ML. I've now done a new >analysis of RP-ML traffic over the past year. Here is what I found. In the >past 12 months, there have been 33 requests for digital design files and one >offer of files. The offer was of two heart shapes for Valentine's last February. >
>The requests were for the following items:
> >-- 10 human: Body, head (2), ankle (2), hip, rib cage, teeth, saluting >hand, swinging golfer
>-- 6 animals: Fish (2), horse, cat, bird, shark tooth
>-- 7 vehicles: Plane (3), engine (2) , Indy car, submarine
>-- 3 sports: Golf ball, golf clubs, soccer ball >-- 2 buildings: US Capitol, Roman style >-- 8 others: Globe, robot, phone, topology, coin, gods, wind-tunnel models, >3-D clip art
>-- Total: 36 (Three of the 33 requests were for two items each.)
>
> The time distribution of the requests was: >-- 2000, 4th quarter: 3 >-- 2001, 1st quarter: 4 >-- 2001, 2nd quarter: 10 >-- 2001, 3rd quarter: 16 >-- Total: 33
>
>These data are too few to be statistically significant, but they do seem to >indicate an increasing frequency of exchange of designs in the digital fabber >community. Of the 33 requests, five got public online responses. Two were >suggestions of people or Web sites that might have what the person was looking for. The other >three actually provided the requested file, either by posting on an FTP or >Web site or by private e-mail with a jpg image of the item sent to the RP-ML. It >would be interesting to do further research into whether people got more >assistance on their requests through private e-mails offline. We've updated our "Napster >Fabbing" Web page with this new data. If you aren't familiar with the idea >of Napster fabbing, you can find out more about it there, at >http://www.ennex.com/publish/200102-Napster(http://www.ennex.com/publish/200102
>-Napster). Best regards,
>Marshall Burns
>President, Ennex Corporation Marshall@Ennex.com(mailto:Marshall@Ennex.com)
>Los Angeles, USA, (310) 397-1314
>http://www.Ennex.com(http://www.Ennex.com)
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://rapid.lpt.fi/rp-ml/
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