From jimhewes@gmail.com Sat Feb 06 14:47:47 2010
Subject:Re: Clavia

I agree with this. True, your competitor may have some gall to email you and ask for information. But you just say, “I'm sorry, no”. Perhaps it was just some enterprising engineer who thought he'd give it a shot. Maybe there is more to it; but as you said, that wasn't included in this thread so what should we think?

I didn't see any mention of patents. If you think you've created something innovative such that it should be protected, get it patented. As far as I know, reverse engineering is not illegal if done legitimately and can actually be considered to encourage innovation. Even if you do have a patent, it's nobody's job to enforce it for you. It's up to you to watch for infringements and then hire lawyers and take legal action. It may be that your competitor infringes on your patent because they believe the patent was wrongly granted in the first place, and they can challenge that in court and may turn out to be right.

If you are worried about ethics, behavior that we'd consider unethical abounds. In the US we get manufacturing for cheap from China, resulting in low prices which we all enjoy. Yet I know that various kinds of questionable---unethical if not illegal---stuff goes on there such as kickbacks, skimming off the top, and engineers working for two competitors at the same time (I don't include blatantly unethical things like child labor). There is so much disconnect between the source and the final consumer. I don't see how it would be possible for us to clean that up unless we put _lots_ of money into policing it. But of course even if it were possible, are we voters likely to vote for a politician who aimed to do that if it raised taxes?

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com [mailto:CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of tonysounds
Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 8:41 AM
To: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [CWSG] Re: Clavia


I get ethics.
I don’t support Behringer and their reverse engineering.
If what we are discussing here is Clavia asking for a part number or vendor of something not proprietary, and something that is on your products, Ventura’s, Tokai’s, Roland’s, Korg’s, Hammond Suzuki’s, Doepfer’s, Viscount’s, Oberheim’s and anyone else I might be missing, then I think your view of what constitutes “ethics” is overly broad, or you’re hyper-sensitive. If on the other hand they are stealing information or technology or designs from you, that is an entirely different matter (and that’s what I’m missing). Obviously, that’s a violation of ethics, even if not a violation of law.

"The meek shall inherit nothing." -FZ
"Hitting 'play' does not constitute live performance." -T
www.myspace.com/tonyorant


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