omni drive copy?

[dai h.]

looks familiar...

http://www.geofex.com/PCB_layouts/Layouts/omnidrv.pdf

http://www.takkyparts.com/projects/d...ster/index.php

[Mark Hammer]

The sound of the Omnidrive is, despite all the flexibility, unremarkable. I don't think John Hollis had any expectations of getting rich off this one. Nice looking build, though.

[dai h.]

yes, nice build but that guy is quite brazen about using info from DIY sites for commercial gain in "his" kits (tonpad, GEO, etc.)

[Mark Hammer]

Maybe, but don't mistake the gloss of a website image with how much business the guy really does. If he said to you, as a friend, "Sure I'll build you one. Get me the parts and I'll charge you $30 for my time.", you wouldn't blink. If he said it to 10 friends, you still wouldn't blink.

Said it before and I'll say it again, you won't get rich off of making fuzzboxes.

[dai h.]

I don't think you've seen his site--how he has added things over time, which I presume to mean that he has done better. Probably a bigger operation than you think. The kits look nice but a lot of stuff appears to be straight out of DIY sites, even names like PEZ90.

[David Schwab]

I agree this is a copy of the Omni Drive, but a lot of the stuff from the DYI sites are just copies of older commercial pedals, and stuff from people like Craig Anderton.

A lot of the DIY projects feature a part of this circuit, with a little of that circuit, and some of another... all mixed together.

There are even commercial products out that are copies of old fuzz pedals with a few changes.

Unfortunately, unless you have a patent, anyone can copy what you made, with, or without a few changes.

This is why people like Bartolini encapsulate everything in epoxy!

[R.G.]

This issue has been thrashed to death over the years. In general, there are not many current, enforceable patents on effects stuff, barring a few new ones and some DSP stuff.

Copyright laws, however, are enforceable and remain current for up to 70 years after the author's life time. Thanks to the good folks at Disney wanting to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain for that one. I consider that little contretemps to be an example of prostitution by our lawmakers of the worst sort. But the copyright laws have teeth in the USA. Internationally, maybe.

I'll dig a bit deeper and if it is indeed a copy or a derivative work of my board artwork, I'll have a little discussion with the gentleman and possibly his attorneys.

Does everyone know that epoxies soften to putty-like consistencies with heat? A chisel-pointed soldering iron makes a good epoxy removal tool.

[David Schwab]

Yeah, 300 - 450° is the upper limit for high temperature epoxy. You can also soften it with things like dimethylformamide, N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone, and MEK... but since most electronic components are also made from epoxy, you will soften them too! Different epoxys have different crosslinking characteristics.

Oh and I wasn't saying it's ok to copy someone else's designs... I wouldn't want anyone to copy mine either, but it is hard to enforce.

[R.G.]

Oh and I wasn't saying it's ok to copy someone else's designs... I wouldn't want anyone to copy mine either, but it is hard to enforce.

I'm a great believer in the Rules. I've always played inside the rules. It's what some people would call a crippling personality disorder, I guess. Coloring outside the lines is a sacred totem to a lot of people, to be admired.

The Rules say:
Anything that's not patented, or that the patent has expired on, is free for anyone to use. That's one point of the entire patent system.
Any *expression* of a thought, idea, or concept may be copyrighted. That specifically includes PCB artwork and schematic artwork, photos, prose and poetry on any subject, songs, etc. are all protected by the law with great force and heavy consequences.
Reverse engineering has been tested in the courts and found legal.

There is no legal remedy to someone buying a pedal, reverse engineering it, creating their own schematics, documentation, PCB artwork, trademarks and so on and selling one or a million of them so long as ther is no intent or attempt to pass those off as being made by the original source; that, of course is fraud as well as specifically illegal counterfeiting.

Can someone look at your pedals, schematics, forum discussions, etc. and build pedals to sell from them. Sure. Not a thing you can do legally unless the circuit is patented or they copy your artwork or trademark.

I have found from looking at the parts placement on the Drivemaster versus my layout of the Omnidrive that the guy didn't copy my PCB artwork. He or someone else did their own. Therefore I have no beef with him at all. It looks like he did his own work within the Rules.

I do get kind of sore at people who steal my artwork or words verbatim, some of them even re-attributing the work to themselves. Right now there are a few of these in ex-Soviet block countries that I can't get at legally. But someday, I'm going to get a big contribution to my pension fund when someone in the USA tries that. If the copier is a minor, I'll get it from their parents, who are legally responsible.

That's what Rules are for - they tell you how to play the game.

The morality of copying someone else's stuff is quite aside from the Rules. Some things we do or don't do because we are decent people. But morality is not written in the Rules.