A Question of Conscience and Intellectual Property Rights and Violations Thereof

[Ryan.]

How would you guys view a member of the HCFX community if he/she were to gather the guts on the top 10 pedals here at HCFX (another topic entirely) and build copies of them and sell for half the current market price?

 

Example List All At 50% Off Current Price:

 

1. Big Muff

2. SHO

3. Torn's Peaker

4. EQD Hoof

5. Malekko 616

6. Dr Scientist Tremolessence

7. CB Merkin

8. Red Panda Bit Crusher

9. Black Arts Pharoah

10. ????

 

Would you praise them for building the pedals you want at a reasonable price? Would you scorn them for theft? Would you reject them for not having the art that you love? Would you buy them secretly and not post NPD threads?

 

What do you think?

 

Pedal builders, feel free to chime in on the pros and cons of a market like this.

[big69]

It would be fine as long as they didn't put religious imagery in it

[renula]

eat this subs:

 

[AimmarCair]

I'm hungry...

[9520575]

I opened up that tremolessence, looks complicated... if some one can do it, I'd buy it for cheaper!

[fruvai]

[Ryan.]

lol, {censored} on topic. i'm going back to threads about bull{censored}.

[amp_surgeon]

It sorta depends on what your goal is. Would you be trying to embarrass the original pedal maker by proving that you can build the pedal and sell it for less and still come out ahead? Are you trying to score some cash by poaching a little business from the original pedal maker? Are you trying to become the Robin Hood of the boutique pedal business, stealing from the rich boutique pedal makers and giving to the poor musicians? Are you just bored and want to make some pedals?

I say go for it, but if you want to impress me then you've got to make a nearly exact clone of the original, worthy of being paired up with DoobieDave's Fibson LP. Sound-alikes in an Altoids mint tin built with parts you cannibalized out of an abandoned stereo set don't count. You've also got to knock 35% off the original pedal's price and then sell yours for half of what's left, since that's what a dealer adds to the retail price. That exclusion doesn't apply if you sell them through a dealer and the retail price is half the dealer's price on the original pedal. You get bonus points if you quit your day job and make a living doing this.

Disclaimer: Living in a cardboard box behind McDonald's and eating out of the dumpster does not constitute "making a living". Neither does camping in a K-Mart tent in front of city hall, or living in your parent's basement in Boston.

[V]

Dude, it's more or less ridiculous to consider making an SHO a clone. It's almost the most basic boost circuit you can think of. Like, about half as complex as a fuzz face.

[Jisatsu]

I think that forum member needs to come up with better pedals to make copies of and sell cheaper.

[H.P. Lovecraft]

Mass produced pedals sure.

 

One-person builds no.

 

I would prefer if someone could clone the Top Ten discontinued pedals for half price.

[THAT4301]

Also how is this a question of intellectual property rights? Pedal builders have precious little of those!

[KoskineN]

Not so long ago, people here would completely destroy someone who was making clones of their precious pedals...seems like a thing of the past now!

[hugbot]

It sorta depends on what your goal is. Would you be trying to embarrass the original pedal maker by proving that you can build the pedal and sell it for less and still come out ahead? Are you trying to score some cash by poaching a little business from the original pedal maker? Are you trying to become the Robin Hood of the boutique pedal business, stealing from the rich boutique pedal makers and giving to the poor musicians? Are you just bored and want to make some pedals? I say go for it, but if you want to impress me then you've got to make a nearly exact clone of the original, worthy of being paired up with DoobieDave's Fibson LP. Sound-alikes in an Altoids mint tin built with parts you cannibalized out of an abandoned stereo set don't count. You've also got to knock 35% off the original pedal's price and then sell yours for half of what's left, since that's what a dealer adds to the retail price. That exclusion doesn't apply if you sell them through a dealer and the retail price is half the dealer's price on the original pedal. You get bonus points if you quit your day job and make a living doing this. Disclaimer: Living in a cardboard box behind McDonald's and eating out of the dumpster does not constitute "making a living". Neither does camping in a K-Mart tent in front of city hall, or living in your parent's basement in Boston.

 

Yeah this, assuming you dont own a factory in china somewhere how the {censored} are you making these clones for 50% of the price?

 

Excepting the SHO because as someone else said thats the most basic thing ever, I see clones of them all the time.

[V]

Part of the thing is, though, that a lot of pedals are simple enough conceptually that it's almost difficult not to clone them if you want a similar type of effect. Dirt pedals especially. There are not that many ways to wire up a transistor gain stage or op-amp and have it work properly.

[Beyer160]

 

How would you guys view a member of the HCFX community if he/she were to gather the guts on the top 10 pedals here at HCFX (another topic entirely) and build copies of them and sell for half the current market price?

 

 

Are you in R&D for Danelectro or Behringer?

[renula]

Subs works the catering for foo fighters and blink 182.

[ChuckNorris1982]

A lot of boosts are SHO clones, and the SHO isn't Vex's design anyway. The Hoof and Pharaoh are already big muffs. The rest? I don't know if any of those are truly original designs or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of them are heavily based on other circuits.

 

When it comes to dirt pedals, almost everything is a clone of something else, even if it's tweaked.

 

It wouldn't be difficult to build most of those and sell them cheaper if you're just doing it in your spare time for extra cash, but if you're trying to make a living from it then you're going to struggle for it to be worth your while.

 

Would I care if someone did it? Absolutely not. There are plenty of people on this forum (myself included) who already do (or have done) pretty much exactly that. Not necessarily with the exact list of pedals you posted, but with others. A clone is a clone is a clone, doesn't matter whether it's a clone of a mass produced pedal or a boutique built pedal, I see no difference in morality between the two.

[THAT4301]

The idea of making a muff cheaper than EHX is also pretty novel to be honest

[TomCTC]

Not so long ago, people here would completely destroy someone who was making clones of their precious pedals...seems like a thing of the past now!

 

+1

[Howard Davis]

The blatant copying of a pedal design, whether just the electronics or the entire product, is a violation of intellectual property rights. If substantial performance improvements are made in the process it is actually an upgrading, but otherwise it is simply piracy and should be treated as such. If I were financially impacted by the theft of one of my designs, I would take legal action against the thief!

 

Guitar pedal design engineering, repairs, and custom mods:

http://howardmickdavis.com

[Pewtershmit]

One thing that struck me as odd is how little DIYers tend to value their time. Yes, the components are cheap but my time is not. Buying 50 dollars worth of parts and spending at least an hour putting together a pedal just to save the $150 price tag is not my idea of value.

 

that being said. I've done the cloning thing, and have since decided that cloning any current production pedal is wrong, unless I'm doing something to significantly change the design of the pedal.

 

One particular thing I've noticed is that most of the guys people tend to be cloning are legit cool ass dudes, I feel guilty even talking to them.

 

I'm sorry Nick, at one point I attempted to clone a Merkin, I failed miserably and never got it working.

[V]

 

The blatant copying of a pedal design, whether just the electronics or the entire product, is a violation of intellectual property rights. If substantial performance improvements are made in the process it is actually an upgrading, but otherwise it is simply piracy and should be treated as such. If I were financially impacted by the theft of one of my designs, I would take legal action against the thief! Guitar pedal design engineering, repairs, and custom mods: http://howardmickdavis.com

 

 

Sure, but you also design pedals that are complex enough to be considered an intellectual property. There's a huge difference between the Mothership and, say, a fuzz face.

 

Of course, like you said, there's not much point in my view of me making a pedal based on another one if I am not going to give it my own interpretation and offer substantial changes to performance.

[The Great Waldo Pepper]

 

One thing that struck me as odd is how little DIYers tend to value their time . Yes, the components are cheap but my time is not. Buying 50 dollars worth of parts and spending at least an hour putting together a pedal just to save the $150 price tag is not my idea of value. that being said. I've done the cloning thing, and have since decided that cloning any current production pedal is wrong, unless I'm doing something to significantly change the design of the pedal.

 

 

Yeah time is huge. Our payroll for this 2 weeks was 450 hours. Nobody that works here makes less than $10/hr starting out. Then there are the taxes, insurances and professional services required just to have an employee. Needless to say, paying myself at the end of the day is some sort of luxury foreign to me.

[humancertainty]

Are you in R&D for Danelectro or Behringer?

 

 

Ha ha ha....

 

I don't think there is anything wrong with building a clone for personal use, though.