[sdiy] SSM chip reissue

[Vladimir Pantelic]

On 25.04.2017 08:33, rsdio at audiobanshee.com wrote:
> 
> On Apr 24, 2017, at 1:01 PM, Vladimir Pantelic <vladoman at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> On 24.04.2017 21:15, Jay Schwichtenberg wrote:
>>> You need to look up Behringer's history. They lost lawsuits for
>>> coping Aphex (sp?) and Mackie equipment.
>> 
>> Behringer only lost to Aphex and that was in or before 1997, that's
>> 20 years ago....
>> 
>> the Mackie suit was dismissed:
>> 
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behringer#Legal_cases
> 
> It looks like Mackie lost because there isn't any law against
> literally copying another company's schematic in a competing
> product.

"We sued somebody, but we lost because they did not break any law"

there are tons of 1:1 Marshall and Fender amp clones that people call
"boutique" and worship and even early Marshall amps were mostly copies
of the Fender designs in therms of circuits. but then early Fender amps
were just copies of the tube application notes...


> I don't know what the ethics are, but it sure makes it difficult for
> an inventor to make repairs easy decades into the future, without
> also making it easy for a competitor to skip all the R&D costs and
> undercut the price.

I am sure Behringer would have been able to copy the Mackie circuits
without having access to a service manual, tracing a PCB is not rocket
surgery. In fact withholding such information only harms the customers
that cannot repair their gear while a "copycat" does not mind to tear up
a unit to get to that information.

> I suppose if there is a patent on technology in the schematic, like
> Moog's ladder filter, then that's a different story from hoping to
> copyright the schematic of a complete product.

and even that expires after 20 years, hence all the ladder filters in
various products these days.