Introducing Alan

As long as William gets rich, that's the important thing at stake,..

If the complete ALAN kit (EZB V4, servos, electronics et al) is offered for $500, I'm sure you'd get 100x backers willing to beg, borrow or steal to afford it, except for a couple of problems I struggle to reconcile with that plan;

1. it doesn't make much economic sense to do that considering the labour, time & expense involved to manufacture.
2. The creators current work schedule/commitments means either, another ALAN campaign will be postponed for at least 6months, or ALAN production operations would have to proceed away from watchful eye of creator.
3. I'm not sure the creator would be able to stomach EZB-V4's being sold of the back of his totally amazing creation & benefiting anyone else (in any way).

Regarding the prickly subject of IP & its relationship with respect to hardware. ALAN is designed as such where it wouldn't be possible to 'patent', the furthest you could protect ALAN would be to copyright the stl's. However that would only afford you protection of other business' from reselling the original source stl files (and/or from being listed on an online/public 3D file sharing site). It would not however, afford protection nor be practical pursuing individuals quietly sharing the files amongst themselves, especially in international instances.

Finally, I'd just like to say I'm genuinely excited to receive my copy of the ALAN stl's and begin printing this! Keep up the great work!

Andy

I don't really know how many times it has to be stated, but Alan doesn't have to run off of an EZ-B. If someone wanted to, they could run it off of something else. The V4 is just the option that Will chose to use. If I remember right, there was an option with the kickstarter that included a v4. There were many options that didn't. I think you made a post saying that Will was trying to make money from DJ's work previously. Now you post that DJ would make money from Will's work. Seems pretty symbiotic so I really don't understand point C I guess. Arduino or Intel or the cable company, battery manufacturer, filament manufacturer, 3d printer companies, wire companies, and so on down the line would make money off of someone else's work so, the point is moot.

Will may wait 6 months and who knows what might happen in that time. Its up to Will, so if he waits, you wait to get your "STL" files.

I also know the struggle with financial backing and keeping the control of the product that you create. Will hasn't found the right investor yet that is willing to just provide the financial backing and allow him to take the product where he feels is best for him to take it. Because of this, it is best for Will to keep control of this and see what other methods of funding are available. It could be that someone comes along, or it could be that it is crowd funded. It could be that neither of these happen. I still wouldn't sell the STL files for many reasons. If I were 4 or 5 years down the line and there were no investors, maybe I would, idk.

I give away almost everything that I do, so it's not a case of me being greedy or anything like that. It is a case of the marketability of what has been made. It is also a case of supporting STL files not printing on someones homemade 3d printer. There is no way to prevent the files from being pirated at that point so the value of the STL files drops to 0 as soon as they are released.

I look at it like a painting. If a painting could be reproduced and the value of the original drop significantly, I think my painting would stay hanging in my house for me to enjoy. If the value would rise because of copycats, maybe release it. The issue is that there is no way that the value of Alan would rise to Will if he essentially gave it away. One person getting it for a couple hundred dollars would pretty quickly mean that hundreds of people have it for the same couple hundred dollars. There is no way to protect it from being stolen. It isn't software, it is a physical product. Software has its own ways of being protected, however ineffective they are. STL files have nothing to keep them protected. Nothing at all.

So the only chance that Will would have to make money on the STL files is to sell them at such a high cost that the person buying them would be hesitant to give them away. We all know how long that would last. Sure, Alan will be scanned and duplicated, but it won't be the same as the original. If the STL files were released, and someone had the right printer and such, it could be as good or better than the original. Value lost in scenario 2, not as much value lost in scenario 1. There is a reason that people didn't care so much about VHS copy protection or cassette tape copy protection, but digital media like DVD, Blu-Ray and other digital media have had cases taken to the highest courts in the land. There is no degradation with them. There would be no degradation with the STL file distribution either.

You know, it really is sad that people have to deal with these types of things now. It used to be so much simpler when these types of products required some sort of skill to copy and emulate. Now though, its expected that you should give away your work for really nothing.

@David... I try to never argue with an idiot.... because people watching may not be able to tell the difference...

I wasn't really arguing so much as just trying to show why it would be stupid for Will to give away what he has worked on. I don't even think my blood pressure rose while I was typing the response.

@David... I know man.... you're a logical, make sense kinda' guy, some people just aren't, though... sigh....

@Will Your STLs must be magically delicious because they are always after your lucky charms dude.....

Round 2...

@David:

I liked your argumentation, you are right there is no away to protect the STL files, once delivered, the value will drop to zero.

I'm not capable to judge if 10K or 100K are enough to pay the creativity & time spent, but if the Alan's head is a begin of a bigger idea, why cash it now ?

I've serious doubts in convincing 1000 bakers to buy the STLs for $100, for the same reason, once released the value is zero.

The discussion started with the STLs, if someone prints the STLs is the result as good as seen in Alan video ?

@A84M:

You are very persistent... can you tell more about your age and what you do for living ?

Speaking of the STL files. There ought to be some way to key them so they would only work with the key. For example, encrypt the file itself and provide a "dongle" interface to be able to use it. It's an old technique, but might be applicable in this context since the STL files would not be something just given out willy-nilly. Instead they are to be given to specific buyers/investors. A decrypter dongle interface device would not be all that expensive and can be made so as to hide the internal operations. Someone might be able to figure out how the dongle is designed to work and the code therein, but it would be a difficult task and probably not worth the effort to most people.

Perhaps there might be a purely software method as well, but a hardware method is very tough to crack. It has worked for many years for a company which markets a court reporting software called "Eclipse" . The dongles for that software are much sought after and go for hundreds of dollars each. Of course, it would not be your intention to make a profit on the dongles.

The dongle can also be keyed to a specific computer so that it will only work on that machine unless they come to you for a new key for the new computer. Microsoft tends to use that technique.

For software only there is the variation that requires the computer using the software that decodes the STL file to be connected to the internet so that it can get an "okay" or "heartbeat" signal from the creating company for it to work. No connection, no operation. It also relies on a key. This can also be keyed to a specific computer to further limit it's usage.

Anyway, something to consider. Naturally, once Alan physically is out in the wild, all bets are off and your only recourse then is copyright and patent infringement.

@ptp Agreed.... Nobody in their right mind would pay $100 for stls knowing within months they will be free on someone's"hacker space" somewhere...