I know the stories have been a bit light the last couple weeks. My wife and I have been roadtripping our 25th Anniversary around Canada, but now we’re almost back home. So, just a couple more days and I’ll be back in the swing of things here. For now, this morning, I did manage to find the time to post links to a few interesting stories this morning that you will enjoy reading.

3D Printing’s Forthcoming Legal Morass

Copyright issues are going to take center stage as more and more replicas of existing work goes online. Here’s a story about a guy that put up a model of a tank at Thingaverse. It didn’t take long for Games Workshop, the UK-based firm that makes Warhammer, to notice Valenty’s work and sent Thingiverse a takedown notice, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Design a 3D Printer Filament Machine, win $40,000

3D printing filament is really expensive, and there isn’t an easy way to make it yourself. People all over are trying to solve this problem, and now we have a challenge that can both reward the inventor and all of us that need cheaper filament.

“The first team/person to build an open source filament extruder for less than $250*(calculation details below) in components can take ABS or PLA resin pellets, mix them with colorant, and extrude enough 1.75mm diameter +/- .05mm filament that can be wrapped on a 1kg spool.”

The Desktop Factory Challenge is a partnership between business competition aggregator iStart and online Fab supplies store Inventables.

Portabee: Portable 3D Printer

Portabee is one of what seems to be a daily new desktop 3D printer to hit the market. This one is a bit different in that it is very small and portable, designed to fold down into a laptop bag! They are currently taking pre-orders for the unassembled kit for only $480 they also plan to offer an assembled, tested version in the future.