New Copyright Protected 3D Printing Marketplace for Toys

Source: www.3dprinting.com

3D printing designers are rapidly entering the online world, and websites such as Shapeways, 3DLT and Amazon serve as platforms to sell their designs. Toys 3D designers, however, did not have a marketplace for themselves yet and that’s why ToyFabb launched this week. ToyFabb is a copyright protected marketplace, where 3D printing artists can sell their own toys designs.

The website was founded by Jochen Hanselmann and Alex Schmid and has its headquarters in Switzerland. It works with several toys categories, where buyers can search for their 3D printed toys of choice. Designers can just create their own accounts and start selling their 3D printed toys online.

ToyFabb aims to bring safer toys to the market and the company also thinks 3D printing toys could contribute to the reduction of carbon footprint. “We are convinced that the digital production and 3D Printing technologies will contribute significantly to a new generation of toys more fitted to the consumer, and in general to safer and more creative toys,” states the website. “Last but not least, it will contribute to the reduction of our carbon footprint by producing toys only on demand and locally on any 3D Printer nearby.”

It’s also a copyright protected 3D printing marketplace and 3D designers can self decide the way they want to sell their work. They could sell an STL file to customers or send them a streaming file, which they can only use one time. Selling streaming files is very important for 3D printing designers, as users can’t store and share their streaming files.

The website states: “ToyFabb encompasses the industry value chain from a copyright protected marketplace and payment platform for 3D toy designers, manufacturers and creative consumers to the safety and quality assurance of toy models, recommendation of required materials and printer settings, and the production of toys on a consumer 3D Printer at home or a 3D printing service.”

Recently, 3D printing marketplace 3DLT also added a streaming service to its website. This service came from Authentise and because of this service, users of 3DLT can only print out a file on their 3D printers, after which the files will not be stored at their computers. There was a need for a system like this, as Spotify saved the business behind pop music and Netflix did the same for the world of movies, but there wasn’t such a system for the 3D printing business. The possibility for customers to store and share 3D print files makes it harder for companies to make money using these files. The implementation of a streaming service by ToyFabb is a new indication for 3D printing and streaming techniques to go hand in hand.

Image Sourcce: Pepe Hiller