At what point can you call a design your own?

[vanessa]

he who scans/copies a drawing that someone else drew,
and posts/hosts (=publishes) it on the web
without the (written) consent of the author,
has crossed the border of laws.

"He who", that sounds like something straight out of the Ten Commandments! 

I did not mean scanning an image, or copying a schematic and posting/hosting it. I should clarify myself with an example. Say there is a schematic that someone has posted online that is freely available for the public to view. That author is allowing their artwork to be viewed as a reference. You can use that schematic as a guide in creating your own schematic just as you can use a PCB layout that an author posts for reference to create your own PCB design. It's done everyday. Where the line is drawn is when an author holds a patent on a circuit design. Also like you said; if you simply use the original schematic or layout to post/host or produce commercially without author consent you could find yourself in a legal mess. That would fall under copyright infringement.

[puretube]

OI - I just patented and copyrighted "Tone On The Range" and "Twisted TS9" so this is a C&D order - stop using it without royalty payments you b***ards 

too late for you: "P*nP*n" used "Tone On The Range" as name for an effect first - before you -

you can call your Hamster after that without a problem...

[bluesdevil]

OI - I just patented and copyrighted "Tone On The Range" and "Twisted TS9" so this is a C&D order - stop using it without royalty payments you b***ards 

Here's something to further complicate things: You can't copyright or patent a name, that would be a trademark issue...... and a lot more expensive to register also!!

[Processaurus]

"At what point can you call a design your own?"

When it sounds different than anything else, or functions in a unique way.  No point re-inventing the wheel when it comes to common building block stuff like gain stages, tonestacks, buffers, envelope detectors, typical clippers (if typical clipping is what you're going for), simple filters, etc., if whats already been designed meets your needs.  The parallel of a g13th chord to a common circuit block is a good one.  Its probable even, if you did design something basic like that with common electronics knowledge, you'd come up with something  very similar to something  already out there.

Of coarse, if you can design everything from scratch, more power to you. You're the real deal.

[R.G.]

You can call a design your own when you don't need to ask.

[The Tone God]

When you start charging money.

Andrew

[puretube]

he who scans/copies a drawing that someone else drew,
and posts/hosts (=publishes) it on the web
without the (written) consent of the author,
has crossed the border of laws.

"He who", that sounds like something straight out of the Ten Commandments! 

I did not mean scanning an image, or copying a schematic and posting/hosting it. I should clarify myself with an example. Say there is a schematic that someone has posted online that is freely available for the public to view. That author is allowing their artwork to be viewed as a reference. You can use that schematic as a guide in creating your own schematic just as you can use a PCB layout that an author posts for reference to create your own PCB design. It's done everyday. Where the line is drawn is when an author holds a patent on a circuit design. Also like you said; if you simply use the original schematic or layout to post/host or produce commercially without author consent you could find yourself in a legal mess. That would fall under copyright infringement.

nice recent example here:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=40003.0
lawyers could read a circulation of > 1400 out of it...

[wampcat1]

If I had a company, no matter how small, I know I'd demand creating a brand image that was my own. How could you want to have a company and be proud when you are seen as simply a copycat? Maybe that's what has me really confused. Even still, sometimes when I think about maybe making a few copies of a circuit I slap together, I always get disappointed and think, "well really, its just like FOO with a modified BAZ and the BAR of a BASH." But again, I think about all of the others out there that put products out that are almost exact copies internally.

There is something not being taken into consideration here it seems which is the core of any profitable business. Demographics.
Behringer isn't targeting this audience, or any audience that is looking for the 'latest and greatest', nor any G.A.S. fiends. They are simply providing a copy of an existing product at a much lower price. Ethics aside, there are a ton of poor musicians that would love to have a full palette of effects, yet many of them can't afford (or don't understand the difference between) the higher priced effects or even the boss/ibanez/etc effects that behringer is copying.

In all reality, big businesses aren't generally worried about how it 'makes them feel', only worried about the bottom line, which is the profit/loss statement. Boutique builders tend to be the opposite -- they are creating something that is a sort of 'work of art' to the builder...something they (usually) have put their heart, soul, and wallets into for the sake of tonal perfection. This is where most of us on this forum tend to be at - trying to find that 'tonal bliss' that inspires us.

As far as creating an original design, I wouldn't over-analyze everything. You could theoretically go as far as looking at it this way:
"I can't use transistors to boost a signal or clip because it has been done before. I can't use an opamp with diodes in a feedback loop (or going to ground, or both) because it has been done before. I can't use tubes because it has been done before".

Where do you stop? Do you stop at using any capacitors/resistors/etc because other pedals use them? I'm sure you see my point, though it is dramatized here.

It all comes down to this. If you want to build a tubescreamer copy, but make it better, simply call it as such, or at least if someone asks you if it is a TS derived circuit don't lie about it. I have a pedal called the "phat axx" which is basically a TS with germ-1n4148 diodes, a different tone stack, and a unusual diamond plate style enclosure. I'll be the first to admit it is a TS. But it is my take on a popular circuit and many customers who like the TS style pedals tend to like it as well.

Even looking at a pedal like the Boss od-2, you can see the 'boost' circuit is very similar to a mosfet boost/2.5 overdrive/bsiab type clipping circuit.

That's my $.02 and I Hope that helps you in some way

Take care and Happy New Year to everyone,
Brian

[Kondor]

Thanks for the input Brian.  I was going to email you about that very thing and I believe you put it about as simple and truthful as it could be put.  Boutique stompbox builders and the larger companies have built upon the shoulders of the ones that came before them.  We wouldn't have the great stompboxes we have today if not for the early builders who built the Rangemaster, the Octavia, the Fuzz, the Chorus, the Echoplex etc.  As you said, lots of the great sounding stompboxes have been based on the
Ibanez Tubescreamer circuit.  The great thing about this circuit and others is that in the world of electronics there are countless ways to add to these circuits to get new and different textures, colors, and tones.  That's why I am so addicted to the DIY world of stompboxes.  The possibilities are only limited by our imagination and the desire to experiment further into the world of stompboxes! Even Eddie Van Halen in an interview said he heard Billy Gibbons do some tapping on one of ZZ Top's songs and he built upon that lick and created his own style! 

[mojotron]

OI - I just patented and copyrighted "Tone On The Range" and "Twisted TS9" so this is a C&D order - stop using it without royalty payments ...

TonE oN ThE rANGE

[PenPen]

OI - I just patented and copyrighted "Tone On The Range" and "Twisted TS9" so this is a C&D order - stop using it without royalty payments ...

TonE oN ThE rANGE

Hah. You know, I just pulled that name out of the air when I wrote that. In hind-sight, it is a somewhat clever name. I began the other night designing the "Tone on the Range" booster. I never really had much reason for a booster before, but the name needed a circuit, plus I wanted to try a few ideas I had. I finished the design, I'm testing it out now to verify the values. I'll post a schem when its done and tested.

[wampcat1]

Thanks for the input Brian.  I was going to email you about that very thing and I believe you put it about as simple and truthful as it could be put.  Boutique stompbox builders and the larger companies have built upon the shoulders of the ones that came before them.  We wouldn't have the great stompboxes we have today if not for the early builders who built the Rangemaster, the Octavia, the Fuzz, the Chorus, the Echoplex etc.  As you said, lots of the great sounding stompboxes have been based on the
Ibanez Tubescreamer circuit.  The great thing about this circuit and others is that in the world of electronics there are countless ways to add to these circuits to get new and different textures, colors, and tones.  That's why I am so addicted to the DIY world of stompboxes.  The possibilities are only limited by our imagination and the desire to experiment further into the world of stompboxes! Even Eddie Van Halen in an interview said he heard Billy Gibbons do some tapping on one of ZZ Top's songs and he built upon that lick and created his own style! 

Thanks Kondor!

Also to penpal, after rereading my post, it may sound like I'm being a bit...snobby maybe. My apologies, I didn't mean to come off that way, I was simply pointing out that there isn't wrong with 'borrowing' ideas from other circuits, but that people do find it unethical to take a circuit, call it their own, and lie about it being what it is... Mr. Orman and Mike F. had this sort of situation a while back, though it is now resolved in a mutually beneficial way.

Take care,
Brian

[Mark Hammer]

The late great Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges was fascinated with the idea of the eternalness of stories, but also some of the philosophical quirks of what it means to mean.  He had a short story called "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote".  In the story, M. Menard writes abook which would appear to be a word for word copy of what many literary authorities argue is the greatest novel ever written.  Menard argues, however, that it is actually a different book because while the words may be the same he intended a different meaning.

Of course, what Borges illustrates in his rather unique way is that when we factor human intention and motives into things, and do not restrict ourselves to the outward observable aspects of a product, the idea of "originality" changes.  Conversely, our notion of what is "original" is too bound up in the outwardly observable, and neglecting of the thinking attached to it.  Indeed, in our everyday speech, we can say the same things many times, and even the same entire lengthy sentence has an entirely different meaning, depending on context and intent.

I suspect there are many things that are often electronically "the same" or only minally different, but the intent behind them is different.  Sometimes that can be revealed in the packaging.  The placement of a 500k volume pot near the bridge of a 2-pickup gutar invites the player to use it, where the 500k volume pot safely away from the bidge invites the player to ignore it and flail away.  Electronically, these two things are identical, but in "design" they have two different outcomes in mind.  I doubt whether any of it is patentable or could have a trademark applied to it, but like the two versions of Don Quixote, they MEAN different things.

Patents, of course, are intended to protect true or potential advances in a discipline or technology.  What constitutes an advance requires an awareness of history, and deep but narrow focus on things can sometimes obscure or confuse that awareness.  The enthusiasm and pride which the emerging novice feels about changing something productively should not be ignored, but sometimes it gets to be a bit like a person who has learned to play a BB King solo and changed one riff by a note or two.  Probably a decent and solid choice of note, and maybe even the same thing BB himself would do at some point, but a change in the history of gutar playing?  Nah.

I've had a couple of good ideas in my time, but nothing I would call a "design".  I've had some clever insights about recycling existing design ideas or packaging them in new ways, but these all result in merely an adaptation to someone's convenience (my own usually, but sometimes other people as well), and nothing that yields an advance.

Some boutique manufacturers of amps, pedals, and gutars, have as their point of pride the ressurection and reconstruction of existing products/designs in dependable and robust ways.  A bit like Pierre Menard arranging for his Don Quixote to be printed on good paper with top quality ink.  There is no shame in that, and no cause for criticism.  In a sense, like Pierre Menard, the purpose is different: being that of having something work dependably and forever as opposed to being interesting but fragile.  Hell, there are plenty of instances where I would give credit to making an identical circuit with identical components but simply bigger knobs that you can work with your foot.

Of course, the discussion of when a design is one's own revolves around the hub of both credit and compensation.  To be one's own design means that others who use it should at least credit you, and hopefully compensate you, or not illegally interfere with your pursuit of your own market.  There, the idea of a "design" moves from a purely philosophical exercise into a business ethics situation.  My sense is that far too many people see more business in pedals and fuzzbox "designs" than really exists, but that's just me.