IntroductionBeing part of the twenty-first century can be considered a privilege; you can create and share almost anything you can imagine. Most would say this is a good thing, unless you're in the business world. Creating new products online or off the internet can cost the creator a price. With the Internet and new technologies available, people can now create new products and ideas that have never been created before. After you create this new product, song, line of code, or anything else you can imagine, how do you secure it? This is where intellectual property rights come into play in today's world. “An intellectual property right is the right of a person or company to have the exclusive right to use its designs, ideas or other intangible assets without concern of competition, at least for a period of time. These rights also include copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets” (HG.org, legal resources). In many cases, copyright infringement occurs online. People have copied, stolen ideas, illegally downloaded media, and hacked information, causing copyright violations. Some cases addressing this issue are happening with the new technology that is 3D printing. Along with this, other problems related to copyright infringement are the ongoing problems related to illegal downloading of media content. These are growing problems and they are difficulties that affect not only the United States, but also the whole world. Current Situation Illegal Downloading Since the beginning of the Internet, people have shared files with each other all over the world. Many of these files are music, videos, and other forms of media. But these files are illegal copies of… paper halves… consumer use, this technology is a new toy for creators, but also becomes an enabler for some. What 3D printers are enabling is the decentralization of 3D printing of copyrighted objects. The growing awareness that printed objects are counterfeit will generate further copyright violations. This has been compared to the internet in the early 2000s allowing millions of people to download music illegally and not consider it bad. With the growing popularity of 3D printers, it has been “…predicted that infringement of 3D printing will devalue intellectual property rights and that even the best efforts to stop this wave of infringement will fail (Depoorter, 2014 p.4). As more and more people become desensitized to the lack of enforcement of copyright laws; Just like when downloading music or other media, more people will be inclined to print the intellectual property of others. (See footnote 5)