legal help wanted! Got a cease and desist call from Dunlop!

[Tuemmueh]

..no, but if you put it in a strikingly similar box and then sell it to someone else, you might...and wasnt that what this thread was about?...

Johan

I don't think that this was the only point, my understanding of the discussion was, that also just posting schematic is bad. Unimportant if i want to sell copies or only build one for my own.
If i got someone wrong, pardon me. But that's how i got it.

[hilbi]

But: I could never buy me a real Fuzz Factory. I don't have that money. So if i build me one i can't damage your business because if i wouldn't build it, i nevertheless would buy my an original because i CAN'T buy me one.

I see some similarities here with the software industry, fe "hey i'm using this and this software wich i got illegal, but normally i wouldn't buy it so it is ok to use an illegal copy"

:?

[Oliver]

you must choose whether or not to steal from those who are making a living from their own hard work and creativity.  your choice is your own.

Hi Zachary,

Yes - i know that - and i was never in the need to sell Pedals for a living.
I only sold three Pedals yet (my = i called it XtraDrive = Tubescreaming with Levelboost / a Treblebooster with GermaniumTransistor/ a Transistoroverdrive to a Friend)
And i build a combination from an A/B Pedal with two Bypass Loops for a
kollegue...

I thought abrout to build Pedals for a living, but the market is to big to start from 0 to 100 Km/h with a Handfull Pedals.

I dont want to break out a war between anyone - the world is bad enough!
But every Coin has two sides and so we have to live with that fact.

If i ever will intend a Pedal which is build in another way of function, there will be many people, who will be in the need of build such for their own or for a profit (thats our World)

bye
Oliver

[O]

wow... I thought I'd never see the day when this forum would start to turn into the HC forum...  :shock:

Like a few posters have suggested, is it possible to close this thread? I think that the original question was answered (and how!) and it's slowly evolving into something ugly.

I can see both sides of the issue, and until we learn to "walk" in someone else's shoes, the argument will just be one vicious circleâ,,¢ (hey, I might just use that to name a pedal!)

It's nice outside, how about we take a break from burning our fingertips and go outside for a little while...

[Oliver]

wow... I thought I'd never see the day when this forum would start to turn into the HC forum...  :shock:

Like a few posters have suggested, is it possible to close this thread? I think that the original question was answered (and how!) and it's slowly evolving into something ugly.

I can see both sides of the issue, and until we learn to "walk" in someone else's shoes, the argument will just be one vicious circleâ,,¢ (hey, I might just use that to name a pedal!)

It's nice outside, how about we take a break from burning our fingertips and go outside for a little while...

Hi,

Yes - its a good idea !  

cu
Oliver (Mr. Musikding-a-ling)

[R.G.]

Zach, you may want to chill.

So let the other children abuse you verbally. If you're truly the benefactor of mankind, a genius of monumental standing, a creator on a par with Leonardo, and as fundamental to the New Way in music as you've said, it won't hurt much, or shouldn't. Your work is your proof and your legacy, and should stand on its own without a lot of argument needed to protect it.

What you probably don't want to do is to give the other children an emotional incentive to legally buy your pedals, legally reverse engineer them, and legally post their non-infringing schematics, vero layouts, pcbs, and other ephemera that all over the net. It seems like that might be one outcome of continuing this mess.

One should never try to match spite with a juvenile. They don't have the history or the vision to see the ramifications, and just may do anything. Either let juveniles yammer and shout, sidestep them, or make them ashamed of their youth. But don't match spite.

There's a saying I saw on the cash register of an auto parts store that ought to get more play than it does. It said "Never mud-wrestle with a pig. You can't win, and after a while, you begin to realize that the pig *enjoys* it."

[O]

...There's a saying I saw on the cash register of an auto parts store that ought to get more play than it does. It said "Never mud-wrestle with a pig. You can't win, and after a while, you begin to realize that the pig *enjoys* it."

[analogguru]

For the reason, that someone in this thread spoke out, that there are no ownstanding ideas in the german forum, how do you like this schematic:







it is designed and copyrighted by me, and even published under my name in Gitarre&Bass back in 1987 !
so....i think, only in this schematic is more brainpower then for example in the SHO.


analogguru

[analogguru]

and do you appreciate this concept?:







@zachary vex
How many schematics did you contribute to the DIY-society ?

analogguru

[Dragonfly]

...now where was it that i left that cure for cancer....


...must be around here somewhere.....


...hmmm.....

[Torchy]

...now where was it that i left that cure for cancer....

Sorry, I veroboarded it and it broke. Can you design me another one, this time with assymetric clipping.

BTW - @ RG - whats with the references to "children" and vero-layouts ?

PS edited coz Im rubbish with the quote buttons  :oops:

[smashinator]

Wow, this post started out dumb and went downhill from there.

Stop arguing all y'all.  Winning an argument on the web is like ***edited insensitive post. ***

[snap]

and a D*mble input stage

[Dragonfly]

THINGS WE'VE ESTABLISHED..


1) We're not curing cancer...we're building things that you step on that make your guitar go "wheedly, wheedly"

2) It's not legal to trade on the "look" of another product... (i.e. make your product look like an established product to help sell yours)

3) Clones are probably the "easy way out"...it is more "productive" to design your own, all new circuit.

3) Cloning a product currently marketed by an existing manufacturer/builder, and calling it your own is in poor taste.

4) Its fine to clone a product for "personal use", so long as you don't try to sell it for profit. (quoting Zach) (just wondering Zach...if you really feel that cloning for personal use is ok, why do you object to people posting schemo's of your products? ...not trying to be a dick, just trying to find out your feelings on the subject)

5) This "Desert Pepper Trading Company" salsa I'm eating kicks ass !

6) This thread needs to end.

Have a great day kids !!!

Andy

[David]

Peter:

This is probably a good time for this thread to "cease and desist".

[O]

I have a feeling that if this thread doesn't get locked, we're going to lose quite a few people due to tempers flaring up...

[H.Manback]

Don't make an elephant out of a mosquito, in the end we must all be mature enough to agree to disagree.

I for one can't be bothered to argue on, I just have a new perspective on some people. It just helps me filter out some more crap from the truth knowing this.

Egos can sure help a thread into the shithole, that's for sure. Beating around the bush and not answering questions doesn't help a thread either.

Locking the thread is a good idea, but I seriously doubt people running away after this...

[Karmasound]

yeah, well at this point, it's obvious that the reason for the similarity is to attract attention to make money.  there's a lot of this going in in Europe right now.  cloning currently-made products for profit is theft, plain and simple.  and completely unjustifiable.  end of story.  there is no excuse.  flame away, apologists.  all this time and energy being devoted to copying someone else's hard work... whatever happened to doing something original, people?  is it just... too... (pant pant pant)... difficult? *collapses for dramatic effect*

Amen to that.


I think cloning is ok for personal use, but to base a business off of well....



kinda flakey

[Speeddemon]

really :shock:

Make one yourself, the review says it all:

"basically, a clone of the DOD 250 with a toggleswitch to select between symmetrical LED clipping and asymmetrical Si/Ge clipping. Actually, the toggleswitch selects between a 1N4001 Si diode and a 1n34a Ge diode on the one side, and 2 green 5mm LEDs on the other side, and it has a TL071 opamp"

yes, but a lot has happened since then.
But unlike some other builders, I don't mind being open about my stuff.

Now Zach said 2 things interesting;
-about harming sales
-making a profit.

Here's a little insight, the Myclone costed me about $30 in parts and another $20 for paint (primer + lacquer). I was selling it for $75 and had over 2,5 hours of work in it. So take away $10/h labour and where exactly is the profit?  :roll:

-harming sales:  :roll: yeah right.


To all other folks, I'll leave this thread a couple of days, see if Mr. Vex shows any more great moments of his warm and outstanding personality  :wink:

point 2: It came to my attention that there are still some people here that think I didn't get the point or was being stubborn.
Not at all, I know the HWA logo in the rectangle went too far, as well as the combination of some font types.

I'm emailing with Jasmin regarding the look of the pedal, and already she gave me green light on the CaD boost, but I agree it's a bit low or weak to call it that.

I admit my errors and I don't think more of myself in the grand scheme of humanity than I truly am. Some folks might start with this too, no matter how 'original' they are.

carry on.  

[Mark Hammer]

Quite frankly, I don't have the time to read all the postings here (especially keeping track of all the quotes within quotes).  I will restrict my comments to the following some of which may actually already be within those postings.  My apologies in advance if I repeat those comments by accident.

I find it ironic how often people have complained when some boutique pedal dressed up as some brand new brilliant idea is "unmasked" as "nothing more than a copy" of a well-known and much copied circuit.  In such cases, people get rankled because the packaging suggested something different, and they are offended that it isn't.  Quite clearly people ARE directed or misdirected by packaging, and Dunlop is quite within their rights to steer others away - whether politely or with heavy hand - from using packaging that suggests that what is inside is one and the same as their products.  For many years, MXR was an extremely obvious, and often unique, user of both the 1590B style box AND the black fluted knob, as well as a certain approach to legending, layout, and painting.  So much so that it is easy to peg a 75 x 75 pixel thumbnail as "MXR style".  For me, their case is rock solid and pretty much irrefutable.  Of course, going after a nickel and dime guy is another matter, but then try persuading Zachary Vex that the guy who made a dozen copies of his Super Hard-On in Japan was not worth going after.

In part, I suppose, the perceivd threat that such "bench-top production facilities" represent is something that is probably hard for many of us to comprehend.  On the other hand, the original MXR was a garage-based operation that grew and grew.  I suspect it is also hard for companies to decide on the basis of things like websites whether a small operation does or does not pose a future threat to the brand integrity of their product.  It may be a tongue-in-cheek joke for some of us to set up a website that looks professional when we know deep down that we onyl want to unload the 10 units we cobbled together between exams. But how do manufacturers themselves know that?