ethics

[owel]

My suggestion is Gustav put on the PCB the url of this group... etch in copper something like "www.groupdiy.com" and "This PCB not for resale" etched on the copper and silkscreen.

Maybe again, this may not do any good because the Gerber files are available to the public, right? So anybody can grab the gerber files, and have PCBs made, paid for by them.

For all we know, this seller may not even be a member of this forum, or did not place an order with Gustav.

 

[Gustav]

If you think I should contact him I will. I have an ebay ID.
I think it would have more weight for anyone else but me though. He could say its just because I dont like him getting more for them than I am.

Let me know.

Gustav

 

[soundguy]

I wouldnt make more of an issue out of this than it really is...

If I list some DIY that I did on ebay for $1 and it sells for hundreds, what am I supposed to do?

dave

 

[jrmintz]

This kind of seems inevitable to me. I know it would be much less convenient, but maybe we should go back to just etching our own boards. That is a fundamental of DIY, I think.

 

[AMZ-FX]

Also, we do not want that kind of "commercial" angle on diy - it will most probably annoy the good people that are making a living off these devices, and so it makes our course much harder.

Jakob,

This is exactly what happened with the guitar pedal d-i-y group... it used to be that you could share info and designs and everyone would enjoy building some for themselves. Then a few enterprising people decided to offer boards and kits and then pedals and it has turned into a mess. You cannot release any info or new designs of pedals now without expecting it to turn up in a pedal ripoff in a month or two.

Why is this a problem? Aside from the common courtesy and IP property issues, I'll give you a good example. I posted a project on my web site and the pcb layout had a small error in it. The layout only stayed up a fwe weeks before it was found and corrected, but in the interim, someone grabbed the layout and made some boards from it and eventually started seling them. Of course, they did not work and the seller started getting mail about it... he didn't have a clue as to what was wrong with them, so of course he told them to contact ME!

I got to the bottom of the problem in short order and devised a fix but the people who bought the boards were pissed off at me and not the guy who ripped off my board design and profited from it! Another time, someone ripped off a layout for one of my projects but re-drew it with his pcb software and made a serious error in it... once again the boards did not work and you know who started to get the emails... so it goes.

regards, Jack

 

[Michael Krusch]

Guys, have you looked at this auction before writing this down. The guy only resells his two unused boards. Not any selfmade boards to make some profit, only this two boards. He started this auctions with 1?, thinking to get a part of the invested money in, but maybe he is shocked right now, how high the price is.
What shall he do with this board, if he don't wonna use them? Should he throw them away? Will Gustav take the boards back? What's the problem with selling it on the second hand market?
You make a big thing from nothing. :sad:

 

[gyraf]

Michael,

You're probably right - we're overreacting a bit here.

It's just that we try so hard to avoid commercializing of the diy we do - because we can clearly see the potential damage that can occur if things like this happens too often..

Jakob E.

 

[soundguy]

(ALWEY)

dave

 

[Gustav]

This.....is insane.

http://cgi6.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=m6277&include=0&since=-1&sort=3&rows=50

Gustav

 

[zebra50]

I still don't think the seller is really doing anything wrong. But I bet the buyers will be here asking questions soon enough!

Someone could offer a few boards at cost price for the 'buy-it-now' option. That would be funny and have some fun wih the old market forces.

 

[Gustav]

I just think that price is insane. Correct me if Im wrong, but wouldnt it be cheaper to get it fabbed at one of those american companies who has offers on just a few cards ?

Gustav

 

[Scenaria]

patent the boards and you can sue

 

[rafafredd]

the prices are getting high on those...

 

[Gustav]

[quote author="Scenaria"]patent the boards and you can sue [/quote]

Nothing to do with that. Would probably also be a little odd seeing a bloo kit going for $3000 on ebay.

Gustav

 

[BradAvenson]

[quote author="Scenaria"]patent the boards and you can sue [/quote]

I don't think you can patent PCB layouts. That would be a copyright, which you have after you create the layout.

(not to get too off topic.)

 

[Scenaria]

I'd crap my pants if a bloo kit went for $3k

haha

maybe I can call them vintage compressors that were never released before

haha

 

[thermionic]

Anyone seen Roger "Blofeld" Mielke lately? Maybe the operation's expanding...


:shock:

J

 

[peterc]

I sincerely hope that this Group does not experience the same outcome as the Synth DIY group. When I joined (2000) there was a lot of new development of modules & exchange of ideas amongst the members.

Suddenly, one of the major modular manufacturers has a module that is very similar to to a members' design. Longterm result - the list has virtually no new development of "open source" projects since. Make no mistake, it is still a great place to be, everyone is really helpful, but new stuff is very rare.

If some of my PCB's turned up on ebay & sold for silly prices, I would not be particularly happy. Maybe there should have been a "buy it now" price similar to the original price paid for the PCB? Just a suggestion.

We've had a bad scare recently, & while the same thing wont happen again, maybe we need to think of a better way to keep track of things?

Peter

 

[sismofyt]

As long as there's ******** around, nothing can be done about it. Hell major manufactures rip off other manufactures :roll:

I'll bet we'll see several Gyraf Gsomethings on ebay as the real deal in the years to come. That has NOTHING to do with Jakob though...

But if say one of the designs here we did together, turned out as a commercial product without our concent, it would be pretty easy to flame that idiot into oblivion on all the dif pro-audio forums, so sales would be rather slow.. after all our world is small.

Honestly, I don't think we should worry about it. Ripping people off is the world oldest job..

 

[AMZ-FX]

But if say one of the designs here we did together, turned out as a commercial product without our concent, it would be pretty easy to flame that idiot into oblivion on all the dif pro-audio forums, so sales would be rather slow

You would think that would be the case but it just won't happen for several of reasons:
(1) Buyers of commercial units get them mostly from dealers/retailers and do not frequent d-i-y forums. Most of them will never hear about it.
(2) Too many of the buyers that do hear about it do not care! As long as it sounds good, they will not worry about whether the design or pcb layouts were ripped off... they are happy with the product and the ethics are not their consideration.
(3) Magazines will not support the d-i-y people AT ALL!!! Magazines get revenue from advertisers and they are not going to get involved in a mess over an issue that is trivial to them.

I have direct first-hand knowledge of this since a commercial pedal company ripped off a design from my web site and used it in their product:

http://www.muzique.com/amz/mini.htm

This is unfortunately not the only case of this happening... in fact, it has become fairly common practice in the guitar stompbox market for companies to troll the d-i-y forums looking for new ideas and designs... right now there is a commercial pedalmaker cruising one of the d-i-y forums pumping members for ideas and board layouts.

Different people have different ideas about what is appropriate or ethical... the people who spend hours drafting designs, building prototypes, running test and then compiling the material for a web site have one opinion, and a few others who have done no work cannot see what the problem is!

It has got to where I just keep most of my new ideas to myself, or if I post a new item I have to assume it will be used commercially...

More reading material:

http://www.muzique.com/clones.htm

http://www.muzique.com/editor.htm


regards, Jack

ps: The vast majority of d-i-y people are very cool and supportive, and the number of commercial hacks trolling is quite small, but they can ruin it for everyone...