Commercial Rip-offs (spanking)

[The Proteus]

Okay guys,

	This has put a question to me as well... how would one go about
negotiating a "fair deal" with the wonderful designers of these wonderful
circuits? I've been tempted more than a few times to just "borrow" an EFM
design or something else posted, but refrained because it's not my design.
There are also others that justify that "once a design is significantly
improved or modified, it's mine" - but that just doesn't seem right to me.
Take for instance, the EFM MS-20 VCF. If someone takes the filter cell,
and then re-works it to go into a box that has MIDI, etc... etc... similar
to a Waldorf product (4-pole, X-pole, etc...), then sells it... what would
be the "right" thing to do? There's a lot of grey area here, and I'd like
to hear from tomg, Paul S., and most of the other veterans on the list as
to what the "moral" and "right things" are. To me, it's obvious... if I
include even a part of someone else's circuit in a design I intend to sell
for profit, I contact that designer to set up licensing/royalty
agreements, AFTER I've gotten permission to use the circuit. 
	I'm all for using these circuits in commercial products, but
*only* if the originator of the design 1. agrees and 2. is fairly
compensated for it... anyone disagree with me? Think that these should be
preseved only as hobby parts, etc...? I'd like to hear honest opinions,
and not flames.

The Proteus

- - - T h e  U n d e r g r o u n d  W a r e h o u s e - - -
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--<T h e  P r o t e u s>-<Musician>-<Producer>-<Engineer>--

On Wed, 12 Apr 2000, tomg wrote:

> If someone produces something and they got the idea from 
> something I posted in an open forum well....that's not stealing.
> It's not nice but it's not stealing.
> 
> I don't think that I would produce JH or PAiA knock-offs 
> but that's just me. If  it's someone's active product I might
> build me one but I wouldn't post it to the list or build a EFM
> module out of it. Not everyone feels that way and there is no
> real obligation to. So I'm not pointing any fingers anywhere. It's
> just in the future I'll need to be a little more careful. I am much
> better these days and some of the new stuff would be a really
> nice addition to someone's product line. It's not like I can 
> actually stop or leave the list again or something!!  There are
> days when I wonder why I do it but most of the time I know
> it's because I wouldn't have it any other way.
>