RG, JD check this out.

[Bent Penguin]

I've been putting stuff on the net for people for years as a business and I usually tell people to just accept a certain amount of theft. Right and wrong unfortunately has little to do with it. Once you start a legal proceeding you're in trouble, is it worth it to spend $10,000 to stop someone from selling $500 worth of pedals and get a judgement that's a fraction of your court filing fees and took a year of your time? And that's an optomistic scenario

Sure getting ripped off blows but the cure can often be much worse. Also countersuits can be a major problem, if the other guy gets a lawyer a common strategy is to just bankrupt you so you go away. It sucks but it works and I've seen it a lot. I guess what I'm saying is even if you know you're totally in the right a law suit can be a much bigger nightmare than the original problem.

In the '80's Tokai made some fabulous Fender copies, spot on clones that were really better than what Fender was offering at the time. Fender sued and won and Tokai made a slight headstock change and went back to selling them. :roll: Fender got smarter and struck a deal with Tokai and for at least a while they made Fender Japan stuff. So maybe there is a possible way to work out some kind of licensing deal or other mutually happy thing.

So good luck designer guys, hopefully a few emails will sort this out.

[R.G.]

I've been putting stuff on the net for people for years as a business and I usually tell people to just accept a certain amount of theft. Right and wrong unfortunately has little to do with it.

Sadly, that is true. I have also been putting stuff on the web - my own personal stuff - for years, since before there was a WWW (in all likelihood before many of the people on the net had learned to read) and there is and will always be theft, misappropriation, and their ilk. I recognize that in the practice I have that anything that is likely to be of real commercial value never goes up on the net. It's mine, and it stays home with me. I think of that as the thieves' internet information tax on the rest of the internet denizens.

I don't have to like theft of my stuff though, nor suffer it in silence. As I remember the quote it goes "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand silent." If you sit quietly while your stuff is stolen, pretty soon the thieves have all your stuff.

Once you start a legal proceeding you're in trouble, is it worth it to spend $10,000 to stop someone from selling $500 worth of pedals and get a judgement that's a fraction of your court filing fees and took a year of your time? And that's an optomistic scenario

That is true for civil suits, which is all you have for things like patents. However, the megacorporations and their lobbyists have been successful in getting governments to make copyright infringement a *criminal* offense, not just a civil matter.

The legal calculus changes when the criminal justice apparatus goes to work for you. The governments foot the bill for finding and hauling the miscreant through the courts.

When the criminal events are over, there is still the civil matter to take care of, and it's hard to explain to a judge why you should not be assessed civil penalties if you were convicted of criminal copyright infringement for the same event. The draconian DMCA also provides *civil* penalties of a minimum of $100,000 for a *first*, *non-commercial* infringement of copyright. It's relatively easy to get a lawyer to take the suit on at no initial cost to you. It makes it relatively easy to get a judge to throw out a countersuit as well.

So yes, it is is a PITA and expensive to just go sue someone. I had to sue a fellow a couple of years ago on an unrelated matter. It cost me $75K before I saw a penny back, and all that was down the drain if I lost. The suit was settled before trial in my favor. I did this largely because the amount and issues involved were too large to NOT do it.

I am all too familiar with the civil suit process and the mental calculus that goes with it. It's simply not worth it to sue if (a) there is no criminal act involved (b) there is not either significantly more than $10K or less than $2.5K involved - $2.5K being the top of the small claims court amounts.

The criminal stuff doesn't always help. There are some governments so new, inept, corrupt, or maliciously neglectful that they will not pursue a single person's request for redress in criminal matters. It helps a lot if your name is "Sony" to get the legal folks to take a copyright complaint seriously. And there are some laws that the cops just won't enforce. Junk faxes, for instance, are a criminal offense in Texas, but I can't get my local justice merchants to take up the torch even when I've done their investigation for them and give them the perp and evidence.

But it's better than nothing. The long term result of unfettered theft of intellectual property is that only the biggest and most effective thieves own all the good stuff, and what is available is either worthless or people pay through the nose for it. Ignoring or abetting theft is a vote for that situation.

[jsleep]

Fender got smarter and struck a deal with Tokai and for at least a while they made Fender Japan stuff. So maybe there is a possible way to work out some kind of licensing deal or other mutually happy thing.

Yes, sometimes there are happy endings.  In a world of evil-doers there is still some good :wink:   As a follow-up to the post a few weeks ago of the British guy selling TS clones on ebay that were of my layout design.  I ebay messaged him and he was very reasonable about it.  Removed the item from ebay right away and worked things out with me thru emails.  Turns out it was a good thing for him that I emailed him and started a dialog, now he gets all kinds of free advice from me :-)

JD Sleep

[casey]

torchy, you dont have to get mean about it.  it's not going to do
anyone good around here.  i think that your question was a fair one...
now just let it lie where it's at.

tonepad - as long as your layout isnt the same as the other
companies ( boss, mxr, etc ) then i dont really see that it's
that big of a problem.  one thing you could incorporate into your
website would be to say something like:
"this pedal sounds like a boss sd-1."  
as long as you make it clear that although your layout will
give the customer very similar results to a boss or mxr,
doesnt mean that they are exactly the same.  
chevy cant sue toyota because they have 4 wheels and windows
on their vehicles, seats, antennas, radios, fuel injection, etc.

a good example of this is runoffgrooves simulators.....

"this sounds like this..."  or this pedal emulates this type of circuit.

[Torchy]

I wasn't intending to be mean about it, just put forward a viewpoint (with hindsight a bit too strongly  :oops: ). The site I questioned uses the Boss name right up to the point where you dl and open the pdf, and hey, its a "Griton" or whatever. ROG have the perfect approach with "it sounds like", and explain the schem, mods,  and techniques used. This helps people to learn and not just copy.

I like this forum and most of the people on here. Ive helped various people out by pm, and given stuff away free, so Im not all bad. I just think rules should be rules and you shouldn't pick and choose which ones you follow. I apologise if I caused offence but my viewpoint hasn't changed.

And my tin hat needs a panel-beater.  :lol:

[casey]

I wasn't intending to be mean about it, just put forward a viewpoint (with hindsight a bit too strongly  :oops: ). The site I questioned uses the Boss name right up to the point where you dl and open the pdf, and hey, its a "Griton" or whatever. ROG have the perfect approach with "it sounds like", and explain the schem, mods,  and techniques used. This helps people to learn and not just copy.

I like this forum and most of the people on here. Ive helped various people out by pm, and given stuff away free, so Im not all bad. I just think rules should be rules and you shouldn't pick and choose which ones you follow. I apologise if I caused offence but my viewpoint hasn't changed.

And my tin hat needs a panel-beater.  :lol:

i am sure you didnt mean any harm...sometimes it's easy to get
upset when all you know about someone is words on a screen.

i hope you have good day!
 

God Bless.