Comment by iamnothere
16 hours ago
> It's one thing to say that you can't CNC machine guns for customers of your CNC-on-demand service, it's another to say you can't sell CNC machines because someone might use them to make guns.
And yet some places (California for instance) are attempting to do just this by requiring some kind of vaporware AI mediator to review files before the machine operates. Intermediary liability is out of control.
While I'm no fan of that law, it isn't a case of intermediary liability. It's a case of legislators (in a baffling move) deciding that selling 3d printers (and I guess CNC mills?) without vaporware attached should be directly illegal, much like most of the world has decided selling guns should be directly illegal, regardless of how they are used.
It's not illegal to sell these because it would be illegal for the end user to make a gun with them (it might or might not be - but is irrelevant) - it's just illegal to sell them because the legislator said it is.
It’s not the same legal conception of intermediary liability as with online services, but I’d argue that it’s an extension of the same idea. The manufacturer has somehow been conceived as a legally vulnerable intermediary between the user and the printed/milled product, and the legislature is attempting to force them to interfere in the manufacturing process, with the threat of liability as a club.
This same trend is happening all over, from banking to communications to manufacturing, where private industry is deputized by force to police consumer behavior, without consumers receiving any of the usual protections provided by the legal process. We’re effectively witnessing the construction of a privately mediated police state.