Andre Wegner, CEO of Authentise

Running an e-commerce site (CNCKing.com) which sells digital files for CNC machines – a situation that I’ve come across multiple times is that of DRM or a way to prevent people for printing or cutting more models than they buy as I use a price per cut model. For instance, somebody could buy a model off my site and print a thousand and I wouldn’t know.

Authentise was founded in 2012 at Singularity University and promises to have a solution to this situation that I and others have to deal with. For me, I’ve just used the honor system though I have had situations where the customer has been far less than honorable. At the end of the day, I’ve yet to find a solution that doesn’t somehow “punish” good honest customers – maybe Authentise is a possible solution?

Authentise has a very unique business model in the 3D printing world… where others have tried DRM to control printing quantity and distribution, you’ve gone with an online streaming approach. Where did the idea for this come from and do you see it applied for other CNC machines types as well in other industries?

We have already had requests from CNC designers and users. 3D Printing is only one way in which manufacturing is going digital and as it does, those who try to make a living from designing objects for those processes want and should be rewarded for their work. That’s the simple context we operate in: We want to enable the best designers in the world to share their designs more freely without fearing loss. This enables sharing and with it more use cases for people who own or have access to CNC machines, 3D printers, and others.

With 3D printing, everything can go 100% right and then at the last minute or printing, the model can unstick from the base or there can be material warping issues due to a variety of reasons… how do you account for 3D printing “errors” and how are you fair to both the designer and purchaser in this regard?

At the moment we enable reprints up to the amount specified by our partners. Those partners, websites that sell designs, may say everything up to 90% printed can be reprinted, so if only 89% of the object has been printed and you abort because it’s become unstuck all you’ve got to do is press the print button again. Beyond that, you’d have to get in touch with us to get another print.

However, that’s is only the start of it. The real magic of streaming via Authentise happens in the backend: Using the data we obtain to make your print better and less likely to fail half way through. We’re also working on automatic ways of telling whether the object is failing.

I’ve been pushing the “pay per cut/print” concept for 5 years in the CNC design field with CNCKing.com… it’s a tough sell because you have to rely on the honor system which your system would help verify. That being said, I could technically use Authentise once THEN simply 3D scan the model to make endless copies to circumvent your streaming protection. There always seems to be a way around “DRM” if somebody gives it half a though. What are your views on copyright and piracy in general in this regard?

There always is a way around DRM but what we are doing is NOT DRM. We’re trying to create legitimate channels for people that want to purchase original designs. That’s why releasing an API for design marketplaces instead of building one ourselves – we want to make it easy to experiment with pricing and marketplace user experiences, relying on us to re-assure the rights holder.

Take a look at the music industry – protection was important for reassurance initially but it quickly became clear that the real differentiation comes from how cheap you can make it, how broad your collection, how intuitive your design.

How does your software solution integrate into an e-commerce site already distributing 3D models such as mine and bigger guys out there? Is it an extensive undertaking or simple and quick to do?

Making it easy is what we’re all about: It’s as simple as 2 basic API calls and a widget, which manages the rest of the process from your website.

Have you approached 3D Systems or Stratasys with your technology? What has their reaction been? They both run massive sites both selling and distributing 3D content.

There are opportunities to work with every marketplace and every 3D printer manufacturer. I think everybody realises that an independent 3rd party is required to manage IP issues.

Does your software solution work for all 3D printers or are there some technological requirements that the customer must meet before successfully being able to 3D print an order?

Right now, it works for about 80% of domestic 3D Printers. We’ll be expanding that pretty aggressively in the next 5 months

SendShapes is a very novel approach towards proofing your business model – are there any major sites that took you up on the API offerings you provide?

Yes, you’ll see them rolling out in Q1 and beyond.

You can find out more about them by visiting http://authentise.com