RG, JD check this out.

[Paul Marossy]

Before y'all jump in on the tonepad witch hunt, you should read this:
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

Then you can decide for yourself. I am not sure that everyone here really understands copyright laws...

[mikeb]

YOU ARE USING THE BOSS TRADENAME TO ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO BUY YOUR PCBs.

These double-standards are pervasive here, and are spoiling the forum.

Firstly - I don't think it is illegal to refer to other's products when promoting your own. I describe my infinitphase as 'similar to the bastard child of ZVex Seek wah and a phaser' just so people get some idea of what it is. Describing all sorts of things is made easier by comparison.

Secondly - it isn't double standards. It's a level of subtle difference that some people - maybe you? - have difficulty understanding, and hence the comments upon which seem a little strange. I think Tonepad and GGG are *wonderful*, the people behind them obviously give *much* to our community and I would doubt they make much $$$ out of their ventures. I'm looking forward to being able to offer some of my PCB designs via such 'locations' in the future.

Mike

[mikeb]

double-post PLZ DELETE

[R.G.]

I am not sure that everyone here really understands copyright laws...

I'm pretty sure that a significant fraction here doesn't understand them. And possibly wouldn't agree if they did.

The problem with copyright is that businesses have coopted copyright and other IP laws for protection of their profits (see Business Ethics below). This has turned the concept of copyright from the laudable one of protecting an artist's livelihood into corporate welfare, as with the ownership of all music and motion picture recordings by megacorporations. Whenever copying is easy and people feel abused by corporate grasping, the resulting popular disgust with the corporate rapaciousness rubs off on anyone who does have to use the rules for their original intent.

"You claim copyright control? You must also be a greedy multinational like (insert whipping boy here) and so we'll rip you off just because we can."

If someone by chance wants to pay me to build them a pedal, and I buy a PCB from you to put in it, is that all right? I mean, once I pay you for the PCB, then I'm free too use that one PCB however I see fit, right?

Yes. Physical objects purchased without use restriction contracts may be used as the buyer sees fit: used, resold, or destroyed. They may NOT without permission be copied (for any purpose, including personal, non-commercial use; this differs from patent law) if the physical object or its design is covered by copyright. At least in the USA. Your country laws may vary.

ps: for being a person who has given a lot to the comunity, including the service of making the actual boards for them, I really expected a bit more support and less attacks.

fp, don't expect the community's gratitude. By actual experience, the community's gratitude is a thin, watery and inconstant thing. I've done this longer than anyone here, except possibly Jaime Heilman if he still checks in. Expect a certain percentage of attacks simply *because* you do something for free and want some control of its distribution, and some attacks out of pure pre-pubescent malice.

I periodically think about simply turning geofex off when I get hacked off. How's that for reactionary?

At the core of the matter, sometimes I think these companies and their lawyers are like a bunch of children saying "I was here first" and "you can't have that" and "Mine!".

Even that is a misformed analogy. There is no such thing as business ethics. Businesses do not and can not have ethics. They have fear of laws and accounting principles, but no ethics.

The bottom line is this. Any information on the internet is easy to steal. And those that will not only steal, but castigate the information creators.

[Paul Marossy]

Even that is a misformed analogy. There is no such thing as business ethics. Businesses do not and can not have ethics. They have fear of laws and accounting principles, but no ethics.

I wrote that late at night...  :oops:
I still do see it that way, though. It all comes down to human nature. People in general are going to steal from eachother every chance they get. If that weren't the case, then copyright laws wouldn't be necessary. If you post it somewhere, be prepared to be ripped off.

BTW RG, I have learned an incredible amount from GEO. I really hope that you keep the site going in spite of the constant barrage of copyright violations you encounter all the time.  

[puretube]

don't you think he might have at least one that we don't have?

very good argument, which I`ve overseen...

so, assuming he does use your layouts, it`s clearly theft!

I'm not stealing anything or taking anything away from them

I have the feeling, that commercially supporting diyers to clone exact derivates/workalikes of existing in-production commercial pedals
does reduce the income of professional designer`s fund-providers...

I really expected a bit more support and less attacks

I do support the sports of creative circuit-bending and think-tanking,
but no commercial clone activities...


BTW: my very personal aspect is to put the art of creation/design/invention of a circuit in
way huger regard, than the drawing up
a pcb layout or ptp diagramm to merely
realize a practical duplication of it...

[tcobretti]

Dear Tonepad, geofex, ROG, GGG, Aron, etc.,

You guys rock.   Please keep making our community as cool as it is.  Any and all of the people that host sites have my gratitude; I'm learning a ton everyday, and wouldn't be able to if you guys weren't out there.  

I support posting any and all designs UNLESS the designer asks that it not be posted.  We all know that designs change, companies die, and knowledge is lost unless it is archived.  You guys are our libraries of knowledge, preserving that which would likely be lost otherwise.  Also, you expand on that knowledge by refining the different concepts upon which the pedals are based.  In short, you guys kick ass.

Anyone who has serious ethical problems with these sites that freely share knowledge should not frequent them.  You are dampening the good cheer of the forum and changing a fun place to talk about diy electronics into a not-fun place where people argue about stupid ethical questions.



[/quote]

[black mariah]

Since when is a basic question an attack? :? It's not a witch hunt, it's a question, and one that is at the core of the discussion.

Yes, this is stupid. It is all very, very stupid. It's stupid because where is the line? If I build a pedal and sell it to my friend, do I have to worry about getting a foot up my ass if someone else finds out? What if I sell to another friend? And another? Exactly when does it become a problem? *EDIT* Three, according to Tonepad's site. :lol:

I don't speak Portugese, and Babelfish sucks. Could someone PLEASE answer these VERY BASIC questions for me?

- Is he using the linked PCB layouts to make his own boards, or is he purchasing boards from the respective websites?
- If he isn't buying the boards, are you sure he's even using those layouts?
- What if he's using modified layouts?
- What if he's not even making PCB's? What if he's just using the general layout on a perfboard?

Before anyone even bothers to mention it, no I haven't drawn up any boards or schematics or designed my own pedal. This does not in any way mean I have no experience applicable to the situation. I have contributed many things to various software projects over the years (artwork, documentation, even the occasional code snippet), and never once have I given a thought to what kind of licensing the project used. It doesn't matter to me. No matter what, I'm not making any money off of it so why should I care if some dude in Brazil does (I do realize that Tonepad and GGG both sell PCB's, but we don't know if the dude is buying from either place or not.)?

There is just way too much paranoia about copyrights on DIY sites and I simply do not understand it.

[R.G.]

Sorry, black, this is not a blast at you. It just kicked off a train of thought I needed to get out.

- Is he using the linked PCB layouts to make his own boards, or is he purchasing boards from the respective websites?

Can't tell. If he's purchasing the boards from the sites that sell them, then he's legal, far as I can tell.

My layouts are licensed for sale through GGG. If he's buying the board, he can sell the board - all built up and boxed - to anyone he wants.

If he buys one then copies that one, he's violating criminal laws. Specifically, he is taking a dollar or two out of my personal pocket for each one, and committing a criminal act under international copyright law and (near as I can tell) Brazilian law.

But he may be buying licensed boards perfectly legally.

It's funny - it's almost like there's an ethical line there, isn't it? And it's only a law.  :twisted:

- If he isn't buying the boards, are you sure he's even using those layouts?

Not sure. Babelfish sucks.

- What if he's using modified layouts?

If he is modifying my layouts, then he's violating criminal laws, whether he sells them or not. Copyright law allows the creator of works under copyright to control the creation of derivative works. Modified layouts are derivative works under the letter of the law. I do not license derivative works.

- What if he's not even making PCB's? What if he's just using the general layout on a perfboard?

In that case, he's perfectly legitimate. Copyright covers only the expression of an idea; in this case, the expression of a layout in terms of parts placement and interconnecting traces as well as any descriptive material that goes with it. Perfboarding the circuits is OK by me, and legal.

There is just way too much paranoia about copyrights on DIY sites and I simply do not understand it.

It's pretty simple. Circuits may be patented. Artwork, music, song, poetry, prose and such things are protected under copyright. The law was enacted to ensure that creators of artwork were not denied the fruits of their creative work. The intent was to encourage creative work because that makes us all better off.

Let's conceptually divide creators from non-creators for the following.

Here's why us non-corporate creators object to copyright violations.
1. It's a personal violation - a minor theft combined with a personal affront. Describing this to a non-creator is hard - I liken it to describing melody to someone who is tone deaf. The personal effect is maybe like having your watch stolen and being slapped in the face if you object, with no ability to return the favor.

2. It's theft. I make (literally) a dollar or two from the sale of a licensed PCB layout that I created. All of that comes to a trivial amount of money to me, but it does pay for some of the parts and other expenses of what I do.

The law in the USA, almost all other countries and international law says that me creating a PCB layout is a useful and valuable thing to do for me and society, and that I have the right to control how that creation is displayed and presented, and whether it may be copied or not as well as whether other modifications of it (derivative works) can be made at all or not. In particular, I may require payment for the creation of copies or derivative works.

GEO hosting costs me a little a month, I buy parts to try out new ideas and to recreate archeoelectronic effects, and these usually wind up either here as ideas or on GEO as tutorials or projects. Occasionally I spend a lot and give the results of that expenditure out freely.

Case in point: I bought a Big Cheese pedal to reverse engineer, laying out over $400.00 to obtain the information about the circuit in the form of the pedal. I can't do that very often from my household funds. The community got information about how it works, and the ability to make a tribute pedal, as well as instruction on how to use the principles in their own creative works. I might even - someday - make up what I spent to provide that information. Maybe.

To forestall the immediate next post blasting me for hypocrisy: reverse engineering is specifically allowed under law, and the BC is no longer sold commercially. I extracted the circuit, which is not patented, and was careful to state that it was in tribute to the BC, and that I had no commercial rights to the trademark or other IP. The layout was completely mine, not even similar to the commercial BC. It is possible that BCs are more valuable because of what I did, because I have this sneaking suspicion that more people visit GEO than the Lovetone web site, although I can't prove that.

The real bottom line on those who protest that everything on line should be free is that they want everything, create little or nothing, and refuse to pay for anything, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the huge amount of stuff that has been given to them freely. It's a classical pre-pubescent attitude. There is no acceptance of paying their own way - however small and affordable that payment is - if they can come up with any self justification for their theft.

3. It's illegal. It is a criminal act to copy works protected by the laws. Once again, this is a place where the non-ethical actions of big companies have ruined something that should be a matter of personal respect. (Notice I did not say unethical; corporations cannot and do not have ethics.) People feel justified in criminal theft of songs to get something for nothing when Sony owns all the songs. It's rationalized that Sony is acting despotically and buying up all the rights just to extract money from us plain people. (Of course that is exactly what Sony is doing - they do not and can not have any motivation other than making money through whatever means the law lets them have, and can not possibly comprehend the terms "despotic" or "extortion" where making money is involved. It's similar to a fish trying to comprehend the concept of "bicycle". Telling a corporation that they are buying up all the rights and charging all the market will bear is high praise to a corporation.)

That minor theft of a song feels so good, so much like a rebel warrior having a minor triumph against which the tyrant overlord's troops cannot effectively respond,  that the thief feels equally justified in stealing a dollar from me personally because it's just as easy - and hey, R.G. must be equally bad since he's hiding behind the same law. Right? (oops, my sarcasm flag just went up!) And R.G. would never really have received that dollar anyway. Right? So it's not really theft. It's still morally correct blows against the empire. Right?

The paranoia about copyright on the part of participants in the internet in general and the effects DIY community in particular comes from (a) a lack of understanding of the law (b) an unwillingness on the part of certain denizens to be responsible for their actions (c) a basic disrespect for the property of others if the denizens think they won't get caught, or won't be punished because of youth or the minor nature of the infraction if they do get caught.

(Again, black, the following is not aimed at you.)

To those of you that quibble with this, I suggest you try the following to see if you agree with me after the process:
(1) Create a PCB layout of your own for an effect that you track down that is not currently available on the DIY scene. Create the artwork, descriptive text, technical explanation of the circuit, parts lists, ordering information and other helpful information. Build one or more and verify that your work is correct.
(2) Set up a web site, paying for it and keeping it on line.
(3) Post the layout and attendant DIY information
(4) Answer technical questions about the project, and update the project with corrections where errors have slipped in.
(5) Repeat 1-4 half a dozen times over a period of six months to a year.
(6) Do 1-5 in a way that's interesting and useful enough to get your layout and descriptions copied on another web site or attract someone enough to start making commercial sales of your layouts.

Then come back and tell us all if you still disagree with the way copyright is supposed to work.

Or if after reading this, you still think you and/or others ought to be able to copy stuff I've created regardless of the terms I've set up for its use, just go ahead and blast away at what I've said. That would be a lot easier, right? (And in any case, it's what I'll get. I've been blasted at by several generations of new juveniles. Sigh. Why do I even bother typing this out again?)

Remember the old saw about not quibbling about the rules if you can't play the game? By crossing the creator line, you're now fully justified to comment about the rules in open debate. Now that would be an interesting debate. For instance, I could engage puretube in a meaningful debate about copyright rules.  His views aren't the same as mine, but we both have reasons to back up our views and we both know and observe the law regarding IP.

If you *can* complete 1-6, you're then a whole lot more valuable to yourself and the community because you just crossed a line. You're now a creator. Try it - you'll probably like it. It's a kick that so far has been  worth the associated mess and glop.

[jsleep]

I wasn't going to post on this thread, we've been through this same thing  so many times, but, R.G.'s post says what I wanted to say so well that I at least had to say that I'm in agreement with what he has said!

I know some of you think there are things on my site that are "unethical" or just "ain't right".  I've always stated clearly that if I'm breaking any laws by what I have posted on my site, please let me know and I'll fix it immediately.  If I'm cutting into your livelyhood in an unethical way by anything that is on my site (not including good old fashion free enterprise competition), AND YOU ARE THE ONE who I'm causing damage too, let me know and I'll fix it.  So far no one has ever taken me up on these issues.

JD

[Hal]

wow those last couple of posts were really long lol

moral: did anybody e-mail this bastard yet, or are we just gunna babble on about ethics a little more ?

[puretube]

R.G.: we don`t have to start a debate...

the rules and laws are clear to us;
the view, or interpretation - like in court - may be seen different
on both side of the big pond (like in global politics...);

the feelings about it may differ from case to case,
depending on the matter.


that process-list looks good!
let me just add

step (0) to it: Create/invent a circuit/effect... ; (!!!)*

steps (2) to (5) occur to some (me) in a little different way
(hence the other standpoint/view):
invest (tens of) years (before "www"),
and tens of
thousands of (you name the currency) worth of money/equipment/TIME, to be interesting enough for a "biggy"...

ending at step (6), where someone opens up a box, draws the schem
(faulty - of course...), spreads it over the web,
someone chimes in making a "layout for the "P-T T-Z",
starts selling those clone PCBs or kits (or even the schem itself),
arousing dozens of questions on DIY forums for debugging,
ending up like:
"hey mr. designer: >my TZ from "ripyaoffpal" doesn`t
sound like the one in "fatyersuction" by the "Stolling Rones" - can I put
in NOS Mullard ECC86 instead of stock Japanese 12AX7?<"


*this does not imply: change 3 R & 5 C values, and swap Ge for Si...

[Torchy]

Torchy,
You haven't began to understand what the topic is about.

I feel kind of sorry for you.

Fp

I do understand what the topic is about, only too well. I raised (as a separate point) my dislike of using someone else's name to sell your own product.

And that was the most patronising comment I've had directed at me in a long time. Perhaps you could refute the argument I put forward, but instead you descend into insults.

I feel really sorry for you.

[R.G.]

Pure -
I originally put in the step (0) that you point out - first, get the skills, equipment, practice and other abilities to even start with (1) and further. I took it out because it's one obvious place for the carpers to start carping.

moral: did anybody e-mail this bastard yet, or are we just gunna babble on about ethics a little more ?

Actually, yes, I did. No reply yet, and I don't really expect one. Would you?

As to babbling about ethics, you'll notice that most of my post was about law as opposed to ethics, and that it stands independent of what the fellow in Brazil does or doesn't do.

And yes, I'm well aware that talking about ethics on the internet is like trying to teach a pig to sing.

[Paul Marossy]

"talking about ethics on the internet is like trying to teach a pig to sing"


Hey, Wilbur learned to sing on Charlotte's Web, didn't he?  :lol:
Or maybe he was a hog?!

Seriously, though. I think this thread has made me realize something that I haven't realized before. Ethics and the law do not have to go hand in hand. I guess I already knew that because I see PEs (professional engineers) doing stuff all the time that proves this to be true. Just never really thought about it.

[zener]

Geez, your intellectual minds are really as good as your EE minds.  

I agree with everything RG said. There's someone (or something) outside to impose the law unto you but it's only your conscience and the resulting reactions from the environment that will impose any moral or ethics on yourself. The law is what matters. You don't want to live with the law, pack your stuff and live high into the mountains and isolate yourself.

The first step to take is to determine whether the Braz guy uses his own layouts or purchases pcb from tonepad and/ggg. If the guy doesn't reply to any email inquiry, well then, his probably doing "IT".

[black mariah]

R.G.: I have no problems with anything you said. I'm not one of these "Information wants to be free, man! You can't OWN information! Legalize hemp!" smelly hippies that doesn't understand the benefits of copyright law. :lol: I know why copyright, patent, and trademark laws went into effect. Your work belongs to you, and you can put whatever restrictions you want on it. But I think everyone is jumping the gun a bit here. Nobody has any clue what this guy is actually doing. It should be easy enough to find out. Seriously, how many Brasilian orders do you get? :lol:

[R.G.]

Black - I thought that was where you were, and that's why I wanted to make sure you knew I wasn't sniping at you. Your post just provided the catalyst in my head.

And yes, we are all jumping the gun. The fellow may not even have checked his email yet.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Seriously, how many Brasilian orders do you get? :lol:

I get a few Brasilian orders, but the main problem is getting the box into Brasil, because 1. the duty rates are astronomical, and 2. unfortunately it is one country where parcels seem to disappear. My customers in Brasil buy via relatives travelling overseas, usually.

[puretube]

the suspicion is all about, that the guy counterfeits the PCBs..
(so: order one, to be sure -  than take action...)