AUSTIN, Texas _ Cody Wilson, the Austin man behind the five-year fight in support of guns made on 3D printers, announced Tuesday that his company has begun offering gun blueprints for sale, saying a federal judge's order to block access to the files applied only to free downloads from his company's website.
Customers can name their price for the files _ even offering no money _ and Defense Distributed will mail copies of blueprints on USB drives, a secure form of communication that was not included in the judge's order, Wilson said.
"This was not an interruption of our ability to share this information," he said during a news conference in a downtown Austin hotel.
Money raised from the sale will finance Wilson's appeal of Monday's injunction by a federal judge in Seattle that sought to bar access to 10 files on Defense Distributed's website _ one file containing the 3D-printer designs for a single-shot pistol known as the Liberator and nine blueprints of guns that cannot be built without machine-shop equipment.
Wilson said publicity generated by the legal fight led to his company receiving $200,000 in donations from supporters in about a week _ halfway to his goal of $400,000.
Defense Distributed also is offering to host third-party gun files on its internet site and split the profits 50-50 with the owners, he said.
