[sdiy] Marketplace Question

[Tom Wiltshire]

As I understand it, there’s nothing actually protected. Cloning might be frowned upon as derivative or unoriginal, but it’s not illegal in any way.

You can own copyright in a specific schematic drawing or technical manual. Re-drawing the circuit yourself side-steps that copyright issue, since now you’re using a drawing that you drew. A cloned synth isn’t a schematic, and copyright only protects the documentation, not the actual thing.

In the case of Electronotes, the whole thing is writing/drawings, so the whole thing is protected by copyright. That’s quite different to the synth case.

You can trademark a name, but mostly this has not been done for synths, and anyway most of the clones use a name which is close but not identical, which would avoid infringing any trademark.

You could patent certain aspects of your synth like Moog did with the ladder filter, but for that it has to be a genuine innovation, not another synth based on CEM chips, so most of the 1980’s polysynths can’t use this kind of protection.

Beyond that, the only protection would be for firmware (copyright again) but the new Behringer Pro-One ( for example) doesn’t use the original processor or firmwarere, so they’ve written new code for a new chip and there’s no problem. The fact that the panel design is basically identical although scaled down is just a graphic design homage and doesn’t constitute doing anything illegal, just unoriginal!


I have another take on the clones anyway. I think it’s great that Behringer and others are cloning instruments like the Sequential Pro One, MiniMoog, TB-303 etc. The prices and scarcity of original instruments had made them an impossible dream for most people, and Behringer have provided a way for kids with little money to get their hands on a bit of that sound. That’s a pretty good thing in my view. What they’ve done has been open to Dave Smith/Sequential, Moog, and Roland to do for years, and they chose not to.



> On 6 Nov 2020, at 17:32, MTG <grant at musictechnologiesgroup.com> wrote:
> 
> Stupid, potentially flammable question, how can companies make "xerox" copies of synths from the 70's and 80's but not these publications? Other than good will, is there something different my naive brain does not understand here?
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Synth-diy mailing list
> Synth-diy at synth-diy.org
> http://synth-diy.org/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy
> Selling or trading? Use marketplace at synth-diy.org