BJFE / BearFoot fx Guitar Effects Community

Would anti - cloners be like vegetarians ?


They wont eat anything with a face?


Fender doesnt have a (living) face , but Hermida does ....


Ibanez doesnt have a face , but Klon does ....... etc....


but then you have vegetarians and vegans and egg/milk vegetarians ,,, and then vegetarians like my niece who will eat fish ; ]





Is cloning a legal issue or a personal one?



It shouldnt exist at all or dont like dont buy it?

I won't smoke anything with a face, but sometimes I'd swear those mushrooms are smiling at me.

Cloning is a muddy issue in some respects. Who owns ideas? How original is any idea that draws on preexisting concepts? Fender "owns" things (patents, design concepts) it acquired thru various means, some perhaps unsavory. Big corporations routinely try to stifle competition and pursue monopoly; good for them, perhaps - bad for us.

To the extent that the Klon, for example, is significantly an original circuit (some of the guys who've de-gooped one claim it is), Mr. Finnegan brought something new into the world and rightly can claim ownership. If it's not significantly an original circuit but largely another TS clone itself... hmm. The issue raised in another thread of folks exploiting someone else's success for marketing purposes is a bit different and certainly ventures into what I'd regard as unethical territory.

Vegetarianism can also be a muddy issue, especially in early Spring.

The "face" metaphor sums it up nicely IMO.

I am against cloning anything with a "face" (and an original idea to match).

How about cloning a signature sound?
If you achieve a guitar sound almost indistinguishable from a sound that has become iconic i.e. as soon as you hear it you know the player or pedal etc he used to get it, but you get it with your own original set up?
Can you trademark a sound itself? Yes you can. Harley Davidson engine sound is trademarked and patented. A certain japanese bike manufacturer lost a case in court and had to pull their bike from market which they proudly advertised as "sounds just like a HD".
Is it an infringement on HADs intellectual property if an amp that bears no similarity circuit wise to, but can "sound just like a HAD design"? Would this be considered similar to H-D case?
Just speculating and splitting whatever hairs I have left

How about cloning a signature sound?

Interesting question. I think no two people will entirely agree as to the proper limits of "intellectual property" ownership. My understanding is that copyright laws here in the US, as originally conceived, were of deliberately limited scope and recognized that all new intellectual property grows out of the collective consciousness, so to speak (my characterization), and eventually belongs in the public domain. Powerful business interests have perverted this intent over the years until the laws now would seem to be primarily devoted to protecting corporate profits in perpetuity.

HD being able to copyright or patent an engine sound is, I think, an almost absurd example of this perversion of reasonable protection if intellectual property. While I question the ethics of exploiting someone else's work and accomplishment in order to promote your own product, it's a commonplace and can't be stopped. Where does one draw the line between an objective comparison of similar products and exploitation?

Consider some of the Pop song plagiarism lawsuits where it seemed an artist was claiming ownership of little more than a commonplace chord sequence coupled to a simple melody and rhythmic pattern that had been used countless times in the past. Tough call.

i was dreaming very lucidly last nite.

i was at the NAMM show, and walking around and talking with Ted Nugent.

we walked by a booth that was a japanese or chinese booth -- you know how at most music equipment shows, there will be new manufacturers from asia that you have never heard of, with all asian people in the booth.

as i walked by this booth, i saw an 8x10 magazine ad with my picture, and it was an ad for a honeybee clone -- the pedal was golden in color, and said it was "just like a honeybee", and that it was the "same pedal as played by BOBBY D"

well, this freaked me out, so i went into the booth, and asked to SEE and HEAR this pedal, and told them that i was INDEED Bobby D.

the lady told me to sit down, and that someone would bring me out this honeybee clone for me to check out.

but no one ever came.

and then i woke up

anyhow........what a weird dream!!!!

VacuumVoodoo wrote:How about cloning a signature sound?
If you achieve a guitar sound almost indistinguishable from a sound that has become iconic i.e. as soon as you hear it you know the player or pedal etc he used to get it, but you get it with your own original set up?
Can you trademark a sound itself? Yes you can. Harley Davidson engine sound is trademarked and patented. A certain japanese bike manufacturer lost a case in court and had to pull their bike from market which they proudly advertised as "sounds just like a HD".
Is it an infringement on HADs intellectual property if an amp that bears no similarity circuit wise to, but can "sound just like a HAD design"? Would this be considered similar to H-D case?
Just speculating and splitting whatever hairs I have left

A few years ago I happened to have a conversation with the guy who owns the audio lab where Harley Davidson has done some of it's research and testing into the sound of the bikes. I even got to go into the "quietest place on earth" http://www.audiojunkies.com/blog/902/th ... field-labs. He told me that he's had requests from yogi's and such to use the room as a "meditation" space! It's not a comfortable experience to be shut in there by yourself.

That kind of research and testing is not cheap. It requires teams of people, expensive measurement equipment, survey groups, etc, etc. I'd say a magnitude or two more effort and expense than is typically put into sound research for an effect pedal.

That kind of research and testing is not cheap. It requires teams of people, expensive measurement equipment, survey groups, etc, etc. I'd say a magnitude or two more effort and expense than is typically put into sound research for an effect pedal.

Truly astonishing. Particularly given the result is a deafening noise that nearly makes me homicidal when my neighbor's Harley riding friends visit and sit outside revving the damned things. But perhaps my ear is not attuned to the subtleties of this music.

Ah well, to each his own.

http://solgrind.wordpress.com/2008/04/2 ... stage-red/

It is a page like this that swayed me from buying a Jetter product. I DO have a Uni-Vibe clone and a fuzz face clone on my board, but I guess they don't have a face? I was tempted to buy a Klon Clone, but as it turns out it wasn't a big savings and I still would have no resale Then I discovered Bjorn's pedals and I understand that BJFe pedals are so simple, yet so complex, they may be copied, but not cloned in the scientific use of the word. Again, look at the Jetter pedal! I ended up spending a bit more and got a used Zendrive SE, and while the money wont go to Alf it wont go to Jetter either.

I guess I am a bit old fashioned in that when I did download music I had a rule that if I played it more than 3 times I would buy it on CD, and I did. I discovered a bunch of good music that way. Now you can go to the iTunes store and listen before you buy and skip the downloading all together. I wouldn't buy a Clone of a current pedal to save a few bucks as I would wonder what I am missing. I do the same thing with my 5e3 clone.

I like to support people who come up with great original product ideas in the hopes that the easy money doesnt go to copiers. It seems we are so stuck trying to get Jimi's, Jimmy's, Eric's, old 60's tones that no one is making anything that is new and interesting. I really want a killer Flanger, but all you can get are copies of the MXR and A/DA models which I do not want. Makes me want to get out the soldering iron and tinker... Maybe in a few years when the kids are in school I can get in on the DIY Folk projects. I find the tourbox thread very hopeful.

Slim Henderson wrote:i was dreaming very lucidly last nite.

i was at the NAMM show, and walking around and talking with Ted Nugent.

we walked by a booth that was a japanese or chinese booth -- you know how at most music equipment shows, there will be new manufacturers from asia that you have never heard of, with all asian people in the booth.

as i walked by this booth, i saw an 8x10 magazine ad with my picture, and it was an ad for a honeybee clone -- the pedal was golden in color, and said it was "just like a honeybee", and that it was the "same pedal as played by BOBBY D"

well, this freaked me out, so i went into the booth, and asked to SEE and HEAR this pedal, and told them that i was INDEED Bobby D.

the lady told me to sit down, and that someone would bring me out this honeybee clone for me to check out.

but no one ever came.

and then i woke up

anyhow........what a weird dream!!!!

WOW !!! I had almost the same exact dream, except near the end, while I'm waiting on the Honeybee clone, Ted jumped out from behind the curtains and shot me .... and as I was drifting off I realized that it was all just a trap for Ted's new hunting video --- "Stalking the Elusive Gearhead".