Stompbox Cookbook

[BillyJ]

:?

[Jay Doyle]

:roll:

Tell me now that you:

1. Have never played a cover tune.
2. Never made a tape recording of mixed songs by various artists.
3. Never downloaded an MP3.
4. Do not own any cloned pedals.

Do not say it is ok for you to have cloned any pedals because there was no law protecting it. You know full well if they could affford to attatch such protection, it would be done.
So, if you have cloned any pedals that means you are even worse because you either are blind to only what the law says is truth, or you use the law, or rather the lack of, to convienietly hide one of your moral indiscretions.
In either case you could be more dangerous to thought and stealing of intellect (we all know you have to be rich to buy it)  than any pirate!

Just a thought.... don't steal it!!!  

1. I have played many a cover tune, but I have also had to play shows where I couldn't play covers because the bar hadn't payed it's dues to BMI/ASCAP. That is how that works, it isn't a violation of copyrights at all, as long as the bar has it's ass covered by the dues. It's the bar not you that has to worry.

2. It is perfectly legal for you to make a mixed tape and use it for yourself, or even give it to someone else. This was all covered in the law that limited the availability and jacked the price of DAT machines. I don't remember the specifics, sorry.

3. I've downloaded MP3s but never a ripped one and always done so legally. I know that this may differ from a lot of you, and I don't have a problem with it, I just know that while I was selling CDs I know that I lost money from people trading all of the songs on the CD.

4. You can make a pedal from a PATENTED circuit if you want to as long as it is for your own personal use. There are no copyrights associated to circuits themselves, only patents. The copyrights only apply to the artwork involved, the PCB layout and the schematic drawing. Redraw both, and as long as you aren't doing it to a patented circuit (and then only if you sell it), you are fine legally.

The four examples you gave are in no way similar to the situation of reproducing a copyrighted book. You are taking someone's work and reproducing in exactly and then distributing it without any chance for him to recoup any of his costs. His copyright has not expired and if he were to then rerelease his book you would have taken profits away from him as those who would have downloaded your copy would no longer need it.

In the end though do what you want, but it could cost you $100,000.

God knows I don't have it.

[Marcos - Munky]

Then is better to remove the schematics of this book that are available online?

[BillyJ]

:lol:

[bwanasonic]

I still don't get it.

Judging from the rest of your post, there is a lot you don't get.  You are very confused. As long as you subscribe to the vague, vast and innacurate generalities referenced in your post, you will remain confused.

Kerry M

[moosapotamus]

Sorry for the bad examples.

No problem. Here's some more...  

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it...
... is it really copyright infringement?

How about Shakespeare? Would I offend anyone's stuck-up sense of moral ethics if I started posting sonnets?

Warning: Running with scissors is more dangerous and destructive than posting Boscorelli.

Would any of you folks like a little cheese to go with that whine?

Seriously, tho... everyone's entitled to their opinions, even if they're wrong.  

~ Charlie

[puretube]

What a worthless world when eveything is owned by someone else.

(BillyJ)

Hundreds of millions of cars are owned by someone else.
I don`t envy them. They worked hard for it.
- They can do with them whatever they want to.  -
(Except ruining my health...).

My developed circuit/written book is owned by me.
I`m proud of it. I worked hard for it.
- I don`t let anyone take my car and sell it for his profit. -

What a wonderful world.

  (this may be a littlebit un-understandable for some, but it is my view...)

[Tim Escobedo]

I'd suggest none of us get upset about what others are doing unless it infringes on their particular rights. I don't really think it would do any of us any good should we be deprived of all the unauthorized copyrighted material freely available on the net. Let's leave the copyright enforcement up to the copyright holders.

[moosapotamus]

Let's leave the copyright enforcement up to the copyright holders.

   

~ Charlie

[RickL]

Yeah, I'm not gay so why should I care if there aren't any laws against gay bashing.  :roll: Let the people who are getting beat up worry about enforcing the laws.

[BillyJ]

qqq

[Transmogrifox]

This is starting to sound like my engineering ethics course.

I agree that it is wrong to distribute the stompbox cookbook without permission from the authors.  Now about cloning stompboxes...that's a moral issue in itself, though not a legal issue so much.  

The truth with stompbox cloning is that so many of these stomp-boxes (especially distortion) are so similar   that you have a moral dilemma  :wink: if you put head-toe diodes into an opamp feedback loop and increase the gain of the highs at any point from 600 Hz to 1.5 kHz...or if you use a gyrator in the eq section, or use an OTA and a half-wave rectifyer envelope detector in an envelope filter or compressor. (Note sarcasm)

So I guess the problem the question becomes, "Is anybody being damaged or demeaned by my making my own stompboxes", and I have to say for myself that the answer is 'no'.  I don't believe that building a DOD grunge circuit in a rusted teapot from Salvation Army is hurting anybody, including DOD.  When it becomes a moral problem is when I take DOD's grunge circuit, change a few resistors and maybe substitute an equivalent, but different IC, and market it :twisted: ...Now that's cheap.  

I could go on for a long time, but the point is that comparing one moral issue to another does not conclusively null or justify the morality of the original issue.  Such comparisons are merely analogies to highlight similar points, not to prove one side or another.

So, the question I leave you all with is:  "Now, if the stompbox cookbook pages are posted freely, is it right to use those pages and build projects from it?" :?

[BD13UK]

As a complete amatuer i'm probably the wrong person to comment on this thread but it's kinda like baking a specific type of cake, there's a million chef's out there that think their's is the best way to do it amd they all have a secret technique and ingredient's etc but the end product is basically the same and then it's subjective as to who in the opinion of the sampler makes the REAL DEAL, I haven't seen the book but I gather that it's probably quite a few years old by now and there probably isn't anything within that hasn't been done before or since, I believe even the great Leo got  many of his ideas from the RCA handbook back in the late 40's so I can't see there being any Holy Grail within the Cookbook. I really enjoy this forum and site and appreciate ALL the participants for their knowledge and assistance when it's required and really hope that it may continue for a long time to come, what puzzles me is if there's such an outcry for this particular book why aren't the publishers getting their finger out and reproducing it, isn't that what they usually do to make profit, and it seems like perfectly good business sense to me unless there's some unknown reason why it can't be put back in print, given this scenario those that wished could then purchase a copy and there would be no dissention regarding the legalites of copyright.

[BillyJ]

FOOK THE BOOK!

[Peter Snowberg]

Piracy is just a loss at the bottom of a ledger for a big corporation, but for the "little guys" this is loss of grocery money or rent.

I have resisted posting my circuits because I know they'll end up on eBay if I do. I won't mind if a person here or there clones one of my pedals, but if (when ) the schematic turns up on the net or people sell clones, I will be seriously bummed out. If a device is at the point where I'm not going to sell it anymore then I'll give it to public domain, but until that time it's my design and I don't want copies.

The last time this topic came up, somebody (R.G.?) suggested hiring a tracker service for $50 that locates the author. Somebody else made mention of putting up that $50 if I recall correctly.

I seriously doubt the book will ever be published again in which case the author might be happy to have his work spread electronically. He did the work, he should make the decision.

Honor amongst thieves. 99.999% of circuits build on previous work and/or techniques in some way.

I'm going to put out a face/bender/National Semi VF amp pedal with my own adjustments, but never a copy of someone else’s 'face' permutation. I'm also going to do a boutique BossTone, but the original effect and it's designer are gone.

It is funny how we all gripe that some man with a better education and a published book who lives better and has more than 98 percent of the rest of the world needs to be defended. Too bad you folks couldn't be advocate for victims of REAL crimes but we are mostly pasty whites here so we will ignore the fact we destroy and manipulate the rest of the world for profit and gain and worry about some other white guy that might lose some dimes cause he wasn't around to defend himself.

His accomplishments do not give you any license.

The "pasty whites" you mention forced stearilization on my people in the 1920s and 30s to wipe our culture out. You make a poor (bad) assumption of who is here and this is a very dangerous direction to take your debate in. Since you seem to belong to that group you mention, consider this.... If you copy my work and remove my income in any way, you have only compounded the damage to my non pasty background; adding further damage to an already damaged situation. Let’s go in a very different direction.

Two wrongs do not make a right. Likewise, a wrong is not obscured by an unrelated larger wrong. Some contemplation here would do you good.

-Peter
Saami flag recognized by the UN in 1986. (you know us by the derogitory term Lapplander, meaning 'outcast')

[Peter Snowberg]

Another idea:

1) track down the author
2) somebody offer to sell a .pdf version and give the author a larger royalty than he would have received from the original publication. Offer the book for $15 with all profit going back to him.

Who wants to try their hand at electronic publishing? All you need to get is an ISBN number and you can sell at Amazon.com.

That's a win-win for everybody.

-Peter

[gez]

If i ever see it for sale at a good price I will buy it and wipe my ass with it and report just how toneful the wiping was ok?

If you do, could you keep the mess to the corners of each page so that we can still read the schematics?

[Paul Marossy]

Some people...  :roll:
Like talking to a brick wall. Nothing seems to get through. :x

[BillyJ]

:?:

[BillyJ]

:shock: