What You Need To Know About Pedal Clones

today is not about Star Wars it's not about Clone Wars it's about pedal clones and it really comes from last week's talk that I said a few things at the end and the response to this was like really shockingly interest interesting in a good way I I got several emails that were really good discussions that I had with people um basically you should go watch last week if you're just showing up and you've never seen the Monday monologues the point of these is just that I sit down and talk about stuff generally it's deeper history talks um things about how things are invented uh how Innovation Works stuff like that and I talked about the mxr pedals where they have the Duke of tone or the Timmy and I talked about how my opinions on that for the industry and what does that really mean for the industry and what does it mean for the future pedals then at the end I showed a picture of a uh Prince of tone clone like a cheap Chinese clone and then I sh and then I just talked about what's up with that and I touched on it really briefly and I received just all kinds of interesting feedback um I think that the subject of cloning is a really tricky one I think that everyone's scared to talk about it first for various reasons but I think at the end of the day I'm okay to go through this subject and this kind of format because it is what it is um when it comes to guitar when it comes to guitar pedals nobody's necessarily you know Reinventing the wheel and I want to get into that I think there are cases where there are incredibly unique things being made but there are cases where people are simply copying and cloning circuits and designs and passing them off and there's some type of struggle with what is the ethic of this what's the ethic of it what's common what's the common permission like is there a permission in the industry to do this that kind of thing so I want to jump through it but before I do I actually ask permission I'm going to call him B like the letter B uh I got this fantastic uh printed email here and I just want to touch through this is this email from B thank you B for the discussion we had it is the reason I'm doing the stream so um I'm just gonna read some of this and again this is not your typical video right this is not your typical like JHS show these Monday monologues are all about setting together reading your comments discussing things and taking time to understand something so if that's not your cup of tea then you're not going to enjoy this but if it is your cup of tea maybe you're commuting maybe you're hiding one earpod in your cubicle at work listening to this but I'm just going to read so here's B's email to me this came to me on Tuesday so um it was the afternoon after last week again go watch last week so Josh I was disappointed by your opinion at the end of this Monday's Duke of tone video where you were grousing great word about the Chinese petal clones on Amazon now again I'm gonna I'm gonna do like the net I'm gonna do the pop-up video of this email and just kind of walk you along how I perceived the comments and then read you my replies so I talk about this for just a bit at the end of the video but this triggers this entire email he says I felt like your argument was more emotional than rational and that it missed the mark on a few points pretty cool frankly a lot of the pedal industry is built around the use of existing circuits practically every company of every size has their take on a tube screamer a rat a big muff a fuzz face he's not wrong plenty of legitimate pedal companies are turning out straightforward copies of existing pedals too a lot of budget lines of big Builders are direct copies of popular pedals that have been re-housed to conform with the company aesthetic and some are even Shameless more Shameless than that completely stealing the decor of the original this is the part that got me into the discussion and I found it so fascinating to dialogue again these Monday mornings are all about dialoguing with people and with ideas and doing something more than arguing on a forum it's like can we discuss things as intelligent humans and this line was really interesting to me you've praised the Behringer line on your channel but they're literal clones of classic boss petals and plastic housing designed to look exactly like the petals they emulate I read that and I was like huh okay because I have my reasoning for why I showed Behringer but I'm listening right I'm listening I think lastly your argument is coming from a place of love for your fellow Builders and you believe these cheap clones are taking money out of their pockets but realistically no one that's considering a thirty to fifty dollar knockoff is looking for the 200 to 300 original even at 120 to 150 for the mass-produced version that's three to five times the price of the generic clone that's way out of budget for someone in the market for a thirty dollar pedal I can also appreciate that you think people might get the wrong impression of a pedal due to playing an inferior copy so I brought up you know there are there are people cloning everything from Keeley compressor to you know Brian wampler's Drive pedals to I've seen my at signature pedal but they're not right like the circuits they're they're missing stuff or they're assuming stuff and so you're not actually getting the pedal you're not actually getting the pedal you think you're getting cheap and then you have this weird impression of I don't like the circuit but you never really played it that's always been Paul seasoning with the Timmy and that's why Paul has visibly been frustrated over the years with people cloning the Timmy because they were doing it wrong so much so that he would get on forums and tell people how to make it if you're going to clone it at least make it right I've always found that interesting anyway we keep going through um but I believe that all all but the most deluded members of the Gear Page in Reddit recognize that a knockoff selling for a fraction of the price isn't going to be as similar as marketed basically is what he says so then he says I'm a big fan of your work and then I love this line but the inconsistencies in your logic for this argument gave off the wrong impression I'm sure you are coming from a place of concern for the industry your friends and peers but it came out more like you were angry at some giant nameless company so that wasn't at all what I was referring to or thinking I'm not angry at anybody um I think it was an unfair complaint anyway sorry for the this is another great part of this email and I'm using this email because B does such a good job communicating and I love the last line sorry for the lengthy message and no response is necessary I just wanted to express my thoughts in a more deliberate and thoughtful manner than is possible on typical so social media as your someone I admire in whose opinion I respect so it wasn't about respecting me it was just that he realizes you can't spout off in a forum or on the comments and really have a discussion like you have to stop learn listen talk it out so I replied back and I said here's my email back to him again I warned you this is not going to be your normal episode and I am going to go through the two pieces of cloning and how I've there's two major things I want to teach you guys and walk through and I'm going to get to that right after this email um these two aspects I think everyone needs to understand so um so basically he says here um I was just like I'm challenged by the things you said in a good way um and I never praised Behringer I've actually thought about this and I feel like I have never praised Behringer rather I simply showed him and said that they were plastic they were cheap and they'd probably break and that's what people can afford they should buy them if that's all they can afford I said similar things about JoJo the Amazon line these brands are affordable and people shouldn't dog on them most everything that was shown in this context was discontinued boss pedals right so if the vb2 Behringer vibrato clone you can't buy a vb2 at least the wazza wasn't out then and there's no big value there there's like no big value difference there when I did the original Behringer video there weren't a lot of these boss pedals like the slow gear super fuzzes Etc and I even remembered this story you know in my head I was with Yoshi one time we were in London and I joked with him on a panel about they should reissue the slow gear and he looks at me and goes you do it so a lot of times there's these multi-faceted things in someone's mind and there's more to the story right so when I see Behringer especially when I did that video two years ago I just go well you can't buy these pedals and they're cheap they will probably break but people tour with them I saw an incredibly famous guitarist just a few months ago at a festival I was side stage and there was a Behringer vibrato on his board anyway keep moving um I don't and I said I don't have an issue or problem with cheap clones categorically there's no intellectual property issues here and the circuits are pretty open and widely known the problem lies in trade dress the way it looks the knob layouts and the logos these companies are copying the logos as well as the interior and with the intention of tricking people for small Builders like Analog Man when people go to Alibaba or something like that and find a 30 version of their pedal that's harmful to their business we've run into issue as well where people buy cheap clones I'm going to just tell you what I said people will buy a morning glory clone and then they'll be so tricked we've actually gotten emails asking for us to repair our pedal and we're like that's not our pedal we didn't make it we have to open up show them it's a clone and then they're disappointed and then they're out their money um people can build whatever they want I said we build rat clones Tube Screamer clones Big Mouth clones whatever but we honor the companies we're copying from and we're learning from you can see this in our videos where I did the uh the history of the Proco rat the Bonsai muffaletta when I did the muffaletta I literally took it to Mike Matthews to his office flew to New York handed it to him and explained to him how it was attributed to that and I mean that's the process in my head here right so I'm replying to this guide I'm saying hey B here's the whole story I just said there's a big difference in copying and cloning making it look identical to the original tricking people etc etc I'm really appreciative of your thoughtful response and the time you took to send an email instead of going nuclear on social media so then I'm gonna wrap up here here's here's his an extra fly and I'm just going to Breeze through it because I want to get to the points but he comes right back out and he says um he says right here uh it's great to hear from you I wasn't expecting a response but I'm glad my thoughts were well received and have come across the way I intended no small feat when written on the internet I love that line I definitely understand Josh has a different perspective on these cheap clones and makes his living developing and selling petals but I'd like to offer a rebuttal so we're still going here this is me and B going back and forth and I'm really enjoying this because I feel like it's helpful it's helping me see a side of the story that I haven't really considered in 10 years and so he keeps talking regarding the Behringer video in the Amazon and JoJo ones while Josh may not believe that what he said is praise he's definitely a taste maker and the guitar pedal Community he's replying this back to Joshua my assistant on the show and he says I'm not saying that he's Shilling for them or implying that he has any motivation for playing the pedals but when Josh does play pedals and compare them favorably to the ones they're based on he is legitimizing the copies when an authority on how a pedal should sound says it sounds good that's praise I have to give him that one okay I've never considered that in that in that way I think the Behringer line is an interesting one as well because it's definitely intended to copy the trade dress of boss now this really got me and as I've seen and heard an actual touring musicians would Behringer pedals on the boards so it's fair to believe that boss is missing out on some cells this is where we differ though I I mean you could say that the Ibanez 9 series is copying the trade dress of a boss pedal and there feels like there is some common accepted value there of like what the trade dress of a boss pedal is what you should and shouldn't do and I do know that there was a legal there was legal action taken when Behringer released those pedals and there was some type of settlement and they did change the pedals I've seen pictures of the original Behringer pedals and they were much more um much more violating the trade dress and so again there's all this stuff in my head I go do the Behringer video I feel like I'm just showing people a cheap line of pedals that you can you know go buy whatever they're making you know where are you gonna buy a Super Fuzz where are you gonna buy a Super Fuzz like nobody's making an authorized Super Fuzz anymore so go buy the Behringer go buy the vb2 right but he just keeps going and uh long story short he says I think there's a few groups of people and he breaks down there's four groups of people he says there's broke people people that just can't afford petals so they buy the cheap stuff curious people these people don't want to make the full investment yet so they go by the other thing they're curious they spend 30 bucks they spend 100 you know 60 bucks they're curious the third person he says they're just cheap people there's people who just refuse to pay more than thirty forty dollars for a pedal and then he says there's people where they're like they're good enough and I really liked his breakdown so that's the type people that b says um he thinks buys these clones and he says you know he doesn't think it hurts the companies um anyway he this this conversation goes on and on but so it really got me thinking about it all and I want to read these in a bit I messaged several really good petal maker friends these are builders that you know they're very famous Builders and I ask their opinion on this subject that b talked about and I'm going to read those later but now let me glance over there's a lot of you in here good morning everyone um so here's here's the subject this subject of cloning um kind of coming off this email from B that's why we're doing this little discussion here this subject is a real hot button subject obviously um and so today I just want to discuss based off of my 15 years of experience things I've seen and really my opinions and opinion right um but I think there are some facts and this is not legal advice I do want to give the disclaimer I'm not a lawyer this is not legal advice so just want to say that um and I just want to share a couple points that I feel like I can say that are factual and I feel like they're generally missed in the discussions I see online about the subject of cloning um and again you should watch last week or you won't understand the full context and reasoning of why I'm doing this episode so I think pedal cloning is a massive subject I think there's no way to do it justice in one hour so I think it's best to divide it up into some more digestible chunks and the way I would divide it up is three chunks so you know there's a possibility here that maybe I do three episodes on this maybe not because it's kind of an exhausting subject but I did want to do this one today here are the three chunks that I would say you must understand or at least be interested in to have an educated discussion about cloning here they are number one is cloning or copying of circuits and circuit design that is a very specific line of thought that must be considered in the understanding of our clones okay cloning and copying of circuits and circuit design that's one number two is copying or replicating branding and the look of a product so number two is copying The Branding the look the logos so those are two very different things circuits is one the circuit over here the way it sounds that design and then there's the look those are two very different things and then there's a third piece which I think is one of the most interesting um this would be fun to do in a public forum like a live q a with a group of people number three would be and that would be ethics what is allowed why is it allowed and what does the common market or the common situation of today's pedal climate c as okay um those are the three ways I would chop this up those are like the three nuggets that I would chalk this up into so let's jump into two terms that really matter for you to understand if you know what this is um if you know what that is just drop in the comments it's my favorite it's one of my favorite movies um here are two terms that we should discuss to answer the question are clones okay here's here are two terms to really look at I love how many of you are on here I am thankful that you're listening and there's so many comments so many comments that's a good thing I went like this because it's like I want to read them all but I can't not right now all right patent so what is a patent well you want to you know everybody loves to get on the internet and just start lamb blasting people for copying things or cloning things or whatever but let's talk about what is a patent we need to talk about trademark and patents so let's look at um patent first a patent is a right granted to an inventor by the federal government that allows the inventor to exclude other parties from using selling or making an invention for a specific period of time so you can patent something if you invent a thing you can patent it um these are given to you know chemical inventions uh designs machines unique circuitry you can patent a lot of different things you know there are patents on how certain devices work certain combinations of electronics the way there's all kinds of ways to do patents um and one example I'll show you foreign is the first guitar pedal ever was issued patent three two one three one eight one it was highly unique um this is a patent and it is a guitar pedal that's patented um it was October 19 1965. so you can patent a circuit people do it but I'll get into that later how it feels in 2022. um a trademark let's talk about trademark is a visual symbol so we have patent this is the government issuing something to inventors to protect their invention and to encourage invention so that the inventor can profit from The Invention alone for a period of time okay that is patent then you have trademark so trademark is a visual symbol it indicates a source of a service or a product that is distinguishable from other similar services or Goods examples include you know numbers combinations of colors slogans logos so the Nike Swoosh let's use that one if I go make some shoes and I put a Nike Swoosh on it that's a big No-No because I am obviously trying to sell my shoe using [Music] the fundamental work that Nike has put in over the years the billions of dollars of advertising the endorsements the the work they've done with designing I'm using the swoosh attaching it to my thing and that's wrong so that's a that's a trademark infringement you think of the Apple logo on the front of your laptop those are things you those are trademarks okay um so these apply to Petal cloning as this a patent number one would be of a circuit or a PCB so a patent of a circuit or a PCB and number two a trademark applies to pedals and this way trade dress this is a term you all need to understand trade dress like your trading cards trade dress and names and logos that's part of trade dress you really can't patent the circuit so back to this number one patent of a circuit or a PCB you really can't do it that well in 2022 I know I just showed you this this is 1965 though and fundamentally this had not been done but here's the problem we're in 2022 and everything has almost everything's been done to some extent um so you really can't patent a circuit it's real tricky it's super tricky to do and it's really hard to defend and it's almost pointless most pedal Builders will agree you just patenting a circuit is just like you'll go broke and it won't do any good uh it's it's an uphill battle and the patent office won't they're not going to honor a patent request on the guitar pedal in this day and age you can patent the PCB art so for instance I'll show you this this is an interesting find here's someone who has copied my double barrel and if you look at the PCB they physically replicated the entire PCB and that is patentable like I could technically I could protect that and do something about it but whatever like it would cost like 70 billion dollars or something you know right it's it's it's a thing where they actually copied the PCB work as a work of art and that is defendable um the biggest issue with a pedal Builder trying to patent a circuit is that all pedal designs are using basic Electronics functions and in their fundamental creation they're not unique enough so petals they're really not unique enough to get a patent anymore it's just like Fender amps where basically radio circuits the big muff uses a limiting clipping technique from a broadcast circuit the tube screamer uses a basic IC amplifier design that's seen in a thousand other devices and I could go on and on and on I mean just the amount of pedal Builders including myself who make delays using the spin fv1 chipset I mean we're all using very similar Tech the amount of people making and opping up Distortion Like how are you gonna patent that you can't patent it it's impossible okay that's the point you might can you know I look at something like the chase Bliss automatone with faders that is a much more likely candidate for a patent than anything I've ever done because it's a guitar pedal with moving faders and there's something there that's very original to its function it might it's sonically gonna sound like other petals because it's using Distortion and overdriving fuzzes and we only do those in certain ways but that pedal as a whole is very functionally unique right and these are very rare moments I mean that's one of the few I could think of um but yeah the patent office sees pedal circuits as non-original for the most part but they did see this and they were like yeah that's cool that's never been done before because that was the first guitar pedal all right patents are to encourage and protect inventors most pedals are not inventive they're simply adjustments to pre-existing invention now don't hear what I'm not saying I am saying most pedals are not inventive they are simply adjustments to pre-existing invention that does not mean they're not clever that it wasn't hard to do it does not mean that they sound different it does not mean that they're more likable it doesn't mean that they're awesome it just means they're not truly Innovative slash inventive no one's inventing the wheel we are simply creating different tires that go on the wheel is that I hope that makes sense to everyone now the next thing here if you're hanging around you uh you you're you're my type person um looking at some of these comments here before I go on uh oh there's so many hilarious somebody call me a bum bum I don't know what that means I'm a bum bum all right number six out of everything I've made design maybe the color box and something like the Unicorn was patent worthy just because of the tech and the Unicorn it had never been done at the time it's been done since but a true photo cell bulb being controlled by a microcontroller that was very unique and then the color box is really unique for a guitar pedal uh dual Transformers just the way that is I probably had a shot at that but I didn't go for it because I don't want to waste that money it's very pointless so every Builder starts by cloning old famous circuits and we basically build on the recipes of tone like there are these recipes you know there's the mid-range screamer circuit there's The Versatile Distortion fuzz of the Rat there's the IC boost of the microamp type thing but remember these people are just using data sheet information and so when you see a dod250 or Distortion plus that's kind of straight off the data sheet of how to use the the op-amp the hard clipping and then we do that and we adjust to what they did and we make something new and it just kind of evolves but we're just building with the basic recipes it's it's like this I cannot open a burger joint and patent my cheeseburger like I just can't maybe if I did I don't know what I would have to do there if you're a chef or a cook in the comments tell me what I would have to do to patent a cheeseburger because I feel like this is a good analogy for Drive pedals right so throw that in there if you're a food genius okay here we go trade dress this is the important subject this this is what we need to focus on um this is really the only thing that matters in my honest opinion trade dress okay it's a trade dress I'm gonna tell you a story I've never told this story but hey just I'm just throwing stuff out because I want to have open discussions I want I want people to see things in a more realistic way than arguing on the Forum so here's a story when I first started this would have been two thousand I'm about 15 years into a Pedal company and when I first started it was just me I was building locally and never thought I would do this as a career it just did not make any sense at the time and I was like learning to build stuff I was learning all kinds of stuff I I learned two screamer schematics I was learning how to fuzz faces worked then I was getting into all these other pedals that were just really interesting and I remember being really fascinated in this certain moment with fuzz and I had nowhere near me that had a fuzz Factory I would have had to drive like to Nashville to get a fuzz Factory and I wanted to play one and I didn't want to you couldn't quite as easily do the buy something and ship it to you you definitely weren't going to get a return but I wanted to play a fuzz Factory so I found the fuzz Factory schematic and I built one and it was super cool and I still don't think it worked exactly right but I understood the premise it was a it was a fuzz face circuit um it was a fuzz face circuit that basically you know it was like upside down it was the voltages it was like the grounding and positive were flipped it was crazy and chaotic and um I built one loved it a friend wanted one so I built it I sold one and then that picture I built like four of these and I was and I'd sold them and and here's the thing I actually put fuzz Factory on them and when I look back at that there's some very early stuff I was really ignorant of like I didn't understand that I was trade dress that was a name that was like a name that that the Builder had paid to protect and that was a very valuable name I Now understand that because I have employees and their salaries depend on protecting those trademarks I mean they really do you know there's the income from me selling pedals pays worker who feeds his kid and so there's this there's this food chain so to speak and those trademarks really matter and I remember um I got a message and it was like hey stop using the name whatever make the circuit do whatever you want there but do not use my names and I was like cool thank you for teaching me that and that taught me a real big lesson it's all about trade dress because at the end of the day these circuits you can't there's no protection there but you can trademark the names and we trademark our names and we trademark a lot of our icons and stuff like that as well so the trade dress here's the thing it's the characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging or even the designs of a building so think about a building design that's a trade dress that that signify the source of the product to Consumers trade dress is an aspect of trademark law which is a form of intellectual property so I'm going to show you some things here that definitely violate trade dress now we can't go into protecting some overdrive circuit or you know a blues breaker variant circuit like my morning glory or king of tone or something but the trade dress really matters and here are some examples so if you look on the bottom you have a king of tone and then these three petals are pretty blatant trade dress issues and and the thing with it is you're all going to have different opinions you're entitled to your opinion um and you know it's your opinion that's fine it it it you can you can have your decision on this that's the thing where nobody's here to argue nobody's here to like bash people over the head I just want to show you um this is obviously these top three pedals are obviously benefiting from the aesthetic the Cosmetic the naming king of Clone king of Drive dual Drive the triangle in the middle the compass in the middle the colors the knob layout the LED placement they are obviously benefiting from analog man's work over the decades building a fantastic pedal they're benefiting from his work and using his trade dress in a way that is technically very much wrong so that is trade dress violation I mean that is what it is the fact is those are trade dress violations now um here's another here's another one Keely compressor on the left the demon effects compressor on the right this is obviously like we're not fooling anyone here it's it's yeah it's supposed to look like a heli compressor because the Keely compressor is famous and if you make your pedal look like the famous pedal you'll sell some because people will understand you're making a copy of it and that is the use of trade dress so that is um this is super interesting like these are obvious trade dress violations um so I think I think that this is really interesting I want to get back to the Behringer thing in just a second but um so I read B's email and then I've kind of walked you through what really matters here you can't really protect circuit design and in most cases why would you want to what really matters is trade dress so for me you know a company would 40 or so employees those things matter because are they taking a cell away are they benefiting on our hard work as a group of people who come to Kansas we're in Kansas City we wake up every morning we have excellent customer service we warranty our pedals we're good to people we have you know we work really hard at bettering the industry and then someone just takes the name to benefit from all of that work to make a quick sell is that an issue I think in most every case yes it's a big issue and so trade dress is what matters the circuits they are what they are I don't know what to say there I mean there's you can go back as far as the electric guitars invention in 1931 with The Beacham pickup the Rickenbacker pickup it's like everything came from something down the line the amplifiers that leofinder made were simply modified radio and modified Public Announcement amplifiers everything's borrowing Marshall borrowed from Fender these circuits evolve you know the morning glory of the king of tone comes from a blues breaker but what can be protected and what should be protected in my opinion is trade dress so here's the emails text and emails from three really good friends I'm not going to tell you who they are we're just going to keep that secret because I don't expect anyone to get the hate that I will probably get from this video so I don't ask my friends to do that but they were excited to chime in as long as I kept them kept them private I don't mind I don't mind taking a little hate doesn't bother me um so here's one okay this is from famous Builder number one my question to all these Builders was how do you feel about this trade dress stuff like how do you feel about this right that was my question to them how do you feel about this how you feel about stuff like this all right so this is famous Builder number one the practice of cloning a circuit in the pedal industry is certainly nothing new just take the classic tube screamer and the boss sd1 circuit two great pedals basically the same as each other schematically but both sound completely different there's nothing wrong with this practice and many great pedals have come from the evolution of a circuit via modification or tweaking of the circuit this is not the same as when someone attempts to pass off a copy of someone else's pedal as a viable replacement this is flagrant misrepresentation in other words counterfeiting taking someone else's design both circuit-wise and aesthetically and trying to sell it as a cheaper more available alternative is a dubious and Shady practice that is simply put stealing hard-earned money from original manufacturers so that's Pro Builder that's famous Builder one all right I'm just reading these I'm not I'm not saying I agree I'm not saying I disagree I'm just reading very well known Builders takes on this question okay famous Builder two I'm gonna make you this one too famous Builder 2 says when a company copies the trade dress and appearance of another company's product they're not just copying their look and form they're expecting to capitalize on the Goodwill that brand has earned and on the customer's assumption that their work delivers the same benefit we might buy a Coca-Cola because we've experienced a lifetime of knowing how it tastes because they've spent their lifetime consistently delivering that experience I love that line New Coke detour 1985 expected if chipakola so genericola was allowed to copy the bottle form color scheme typography and sell that to you they're counting on us or you expecting it to taste like cope because of Coke's work it's fundamentally parasitic I love they're not holding back on their thoughts I have legitimate concerns regarding the Chinese government and business practices on trade dress stories abound of companies looking to expand into that market only to discover their work is already there long story short I have no problem for example with a company like X Contracting foreign labor to make a less expensive knockoff series of his work to be more affordable but if a chinese company causes itself X and made companies of X stuff screw that all right and here's famous pedal Builder three I'm just reading these I'm reading the comments they are Anonymous they are from famous pedal Builders and it's a great experience to just read them let you hear them and then fight it out in the comments we don't fight on the Monday monologues talk it out in the comments here's famous Builder 3 the last of the famous Builders I think straight up trade dress cloning companies like demon effects are clearly in the wrong if a brand has a dozen cosmetic clones and offer little else in that series of products then you're not simply flattering me with your copy in my own design work I like to pay homage to or reveal my influences through design colors fonts or even circuit topology but those are elements of a design and are not a direct attempt to stop the cells of another product by misleading musicians that's well said other countries have a different view legally of trade dress infringement it can be very hard to navigate a legal course of action when it's not particularly frowned upon by some governments I'm pissed when I see a visual ripoff of your at Andy Timmons signature pedal king of tone akali 76 compressor or a Friedman Distortion or a Wampler Distortion I just hope that these companies don't gain a significant sales Channel so this is this is a saucy Monday morning y'all I like it I like it um I like again I'm gonna say this it these things should be we should be able to discuss these in an intelligent way and not just deal with snarky comments so if you're in my chat right now throwing off snarky comments you're missing the point and I'm gonna call you out on that like if you're in this forum of my channel you're you're missing the whole attempt here the attempt is hey let's take an hour we're almost there I take an hour let's talk about trademark what does it mean can you do it let's talk about trade dress let's listen to some famous Builders opinions anonymously let's listen to B's email that was so thoughtful and like sent to me in such a wonderful way like I love this email I I want to go back to it you're missing the point don't be that person let's look at this stuff and be try to be really honest with it like try to be open with it okay that's the goal here so if you're one of these people in the comments please go somewhere else all right so Josh I'm you asking me so Josh what about the Behringer episode isn't that an obvious trait dress issue I never saw it that way for various factors it's interesting because you know I had this personal experience with boss I you know I was told hey go clone go clone the slow gear like in a public forum like there was no problem with their thoughts of cloning their old pedals boss doesn't care if you clone their old pedals um there's a lot of experiences that compile in a person you know I think the internet's biggest problem is everything is very microwave and instant it's like Tick Tock instant hit you know viral video one-liner on a Reddit post one liner on the Gear Page walk away and watch it burn the problem is nothing is decided or understood in a moment like that's not how we work that's not how the human existence Works things are decided and understood over a period of moments and over a lot a lifetime of trying to understand and many of you I've I've watched I've read your comments and I think that you I think that you uh are there's some very intelligent people that have been watching the Monday stuff and I'm learning from you and what I love is that I get the impression that so many of you that are watching these Monday monologues you really are trying to learn and understand things in a way that's not so microwave right and what this leads to is we change our opinions I think there's this weird thing also in society I don't mean to get all philosophical or something but there is this interesting thing that I struggle with which is in this day and age if you change your mind your scene is weak and I think that's the stupidest thing I've I've ever experienced a a man or woman who changes their mind it's a sign of intelligence and I think we're allowed to think about things and go that's so interesting like maybe I got that wrong and you know with the Behringer episode I don't know I knew there was a legal settlement I knew they adjusted it I knew that boss was at this point due to the legal settlement or whatever that took place or the changes they were okay I knew that Behringer pedals were basically the discontinued petals you couldn't find and maybe that's an oversight by me and I'm okay to say that I'm totally okay to say that's an interesting one and I'm really thankful to you B for sending me that email because I want my life to be a constant observation of my decisions and maybe a discovery of how I was wrong in the past and then that lets me change and be a better person and this whole culture that we live in it's just trash this trash culture of if you change your mind you're an idiot no if you change your mind it's a sign of intelligence and I just want to offer that up to a lot of you just to go hey it's okay to say you were wrong like that is a healthy sign of intelligence so with Behringer I'm not I'm not sure I just got to think on it more because I thought I really I felt fine with that you know the Amazon pedals same thing they're in these little enclosures they say Amazon I made a hundred Jeff Bezos jokes and I you know I don't know they're like 30 bucks and but there's no trade dress there the Behringer thing has this potential of a trait dress issue but I I think with me personally it's a difficult one because of how all the things I knew about it that most people didn't know and that leads you with your thoughts but yeah anyway that's my rant on whatever that rent was so what should we do with this let's close it off here um oh my gosh there's so many comments you guys are amazing thank you for being here um it's crazy to have 2 000 people on a one hour talk about trade dress um crazy um I where do we go where do we go here are some just off the top of my head I'm just gonna riff here and then I'm gonna look through the comments for a second I think where we go is we realize that this is this should never be viewed as some innocent tribute that's just not the case it's just not like you're gonna buy one of those three top pedals because it's a viable cheap alternative to the bottom and it and it lives its life off the back of analog Mike's hard work so I think that's a fact you don't go by the one on the right without knowing what the one on the left you just don't right so you know a good example of this is my three series compressor is a is a dynacomp raw style compressor similar but the Keely one has its own Flair Keeley compressors are the best compressors in the world but you know I'm making a very similar compressor but I don't do that right so I'm I'm selling it on the back of my own company and what I've worked hard to do not what Roberts worked hard to do and I think that's one of the differences so those are a couple takeaways what are some more takeaways and put your takeaways in the comments maybe I'll read some of them um Saxby says Sweet Child where do we go now um if something's out of production something's vintage go for it you know those are fun I mean the majority of my line is you know Legends of fuzz it's taking these hard to find circuits and replicating them so that people can have them in an affordable way and have them accurate and I go to Great Lengths to do that I think there's a there's also some comment I've seen comments on forums before and people be like you like you just clone stuff like you there's like no it's just so easy actually the legends of fuzz series cloning stuff accurately is freaking hard to do and anyone who says that cloning things is easy it doesn't require r d they're very mistaken some of the hardest r d I've ever done was things like Legends or similar projects like the muffaletta or the pack rat or the Bonsai those are insanely difficult r d projects anyway that's a whole other end so these clones are not bad when they're out of production clones vintage carrying The Branding of the company making it not The Branding of the thing being cloned not piggybacking off the back of someone else's hard work and they're bad when they actively exist on the back of another Brand's intellectual property like trade dress yeah and there's just some gray areas like the Behringer things really really got me thinking and that's interesting and I'm thankful for that off it I also was gonna say you know we've all experienced you go to the grocery store and you buy the bag cereal you know you know that it's you know that it's uh Honey Nut Cheerios but it says like honeybee oats or something and it's in a bag you know I've always been interested in how that works with food because you'll go buy like ketchup and it's clearly Heinz looking ketchup but it's not uh generic medication or like when you go to Walmart or Target and you buy their version of aspirin but it's like so close looking there's interesting things with trade dress and again I said last week and I've said the week before that guitar does not exist in a vacuum and I think that gets into the ethic and that gets into what's socially accepted so let's look at some some q and A's will take a few minutes and let's look through the stuff here [Music] um let's see uh Greg crane Josh should wear a dress for this that would have worked really well with trade dress I missed that opportunity I'm a failure um man there's so many this is a tough one to even get into um skeleton Pete says the Behringer supervisor looks nothing like the ogs um says it lifts Boss look for connection with virus perception quality alternatively it's a killer pedal um recipes can't be patented same as circuits Greg Wilcox says um generic cereal never tastes the same though that's what I believed as a kid we were too poor to have like the real cereal we couldn't afford it so I always got the bag cereal and I I would I would be like eating my bag Lucky Charms and I knew they weren't lucky those those were Unlucky Charms thanks Mom for The Unlucky Charms um okay here's a good one the dilligan how about when line six puts a king of tone clone in their Helix now boss has a clone uh clone sound in the DD whatever the drive pedal is the 200 series that's interesting you know it's it's not violating any trade dress and it's just a sound um man I have so many stories maybe for another episode there's some fascinating stories when I did interviews with line six about the story of the 4x4 delay modules and stuff there were these lawsuits and I have a bunch of info on how the trials went and how people won or lost and it was fascinating can't get into it now but um I don't see any legitimate question I see tons of comments so I know you guys and gals are engaging in this and that's really wonderful and that's really My Hope for this is just that you would engage in the thought and like carry the thought on because I don't you know I'm not a magician here I just want people to think about stuff Christopher Hansford said Josh brings up food a lot yeah yeah I'm hungry um but Grant morsely what's your opinion on build your own clones but I think build your own clones clone kits are valuable I think every Builder I started that way I mean it's a great education they're not trying to sell you a pedal as if they're the company you know I I'm a big I love clone kits I recommend them I did some with Stu Mac I think they're wonderful I think every one of you should go build a pedal everyone watching this should just take a shot at it and go buy a clone kit um Vibes patil he uh top chatted um with all the great technological advancements we've seen why is it so hard to replicate the sound of the nkt germanium transistors are the old lexicon reverbs I I would I would argue and say it's not hard to replicate the sound of those transistors I take it the circuit around the transistor is what matters most and I would also say their lexicon reverbs I mean those have been those have been done pretty well I I feel like they have um let's see here there's so many you guys are amazing um so how does Syria tone get away with it Christopher Hansford talking about a clan replica clone is a really complex topic that we don't have time for he quit making the climb he made the KTR the clown has entered what feels like this public domain he's bill is back and forth with making him not making one of I don't know I don't know I gotta be honest the the con is like a whole other crazy just a just a crazy situation to talk through but it might be worth it to talk through that someday um Kyle gisbert says I think this boils down to a lack of patience and Society we want what we want now um it's one thing to get a pedal to try it out if you like it enough save up get the pedal if you want to support them that's a great comment um Willie deal I'm bad with names I agree that the idea that every pedal bench should have their own consistent look if Brand X issues a clone or clonish circuit the enclosure should look like the Brand X not the original um man there's this I'm overwhelmed with the amount of comments this is really great um I will look through these later I'll try to spend some time today and tomorrow and uh thanks to all lots of you that are watching this kind of amazing um yeah this was good so our clones bad I threw out my stuff I showed you what some famous builders that you all admire said um I read a wonderful email from a viewer that actually sent me a nice calm letter of discussion that was so nice and um yeah I think trade dress is the main issue I have nothing longer to say we've been here for an hour I appreciate your time in the comments let me know other discussions you would like me to talk about I do listen to you this entire discussion is from the email of a viewer and I have chosen one of the other off of comments so please in the comments tell me what you would like to see me talk about um and uh I guess just put in there in an educated polite way how far is too far cloning in your opinion so that's your three assignments that's your homework assignment somebody just joked and said you should get a certificate from this that would be funny but yeah let me know what you'd like me to talk about next let me know in the comments considering cloning and your opinion in an educated calm and polite way how far is too far and um yeah that's it thanks so much bye bye I'm out of here

Channel: JHS Pedals

Views: 112,930

Keywords: JHS, JHS Pedals, The JHS Show, Guitar Pedals, Guitar Effects, Guitar Gear, Guitar Pedal Demo, Music History, overdrive pedal, chorus pedal, distortion pedal, boss pedals, compressor pedal, univibe, delay pedal, octave fuzz, reverb pedal, reverb, eq pedal, boost pedal, behringer

Id: DJnwsHXFFKs

Length: 58min 44sec (3524 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 26 2022