Core77

In an entry titled "The Looming Dark Horizon: When the IP Mess Hits Industrial Design & Co.," the reBang weblog envisions a file-sharing future that ought to terrify ID'ers, or at least their parent companies:

At some point, p2p networks won't have just mp3 files, they'll have CAD files. When they do, the first thing that will happen is factories in distant corners of the manufacturing world will start churning out bootleg product at a pace that will make current infringement look like pre-Napster music "sharing". After that people will start using locally-based fabbing services to rapid manufacture parts the way people used to photocopy stuff at the local copy shop. Eventually, home-based 3D printers (or, possibly in the more distant future, nano-factories) will allow people to fab something as easily as they currently print their digital photos.

That's the future. It's all up for grabs. Creatives can either try to fight it or they can figure out new business models.

At the bottom of the entry, the (uncredited) writer lists no less than 26 "links to IP-related news which should be of interest to (industrial) designers," including the lurid tale of Herman Miller combatting knockoffs...in Second Life, of all places.