Behringer Brains

Yeah I’m gonna have to call BS on that as well. We all know what they doin.

If you have a problem with it or not is another question. Btw @analogoutput i thought you were anti-behringer? Lol

  1. I have no problem with cloning vintage, otherwise practically unavailable synth designs.
  2. I do have a big problem with individuals and companies that engage in puerile, insulting, vindictive behavior toward their critics. Especially when it also has at least the appearance of antisemitism.
  3. I think cloning modern competitors’ current products without even pretending to try to improve upon them, especially non open source ones, is tacky in the extreme.
  4. I absolutely could not persuade myself not to buy a 2600 Gray Meanie when I had the opportunity.
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Hmm, so they have announced the ‘Brains’ (which basically is some form of oscillator), and there is mention of a new module ‘Four Play’ (which is a group of VCAs), so I wonder whether their next modules will be some sort of envelope generator and maybe a filter to complete the basic components one needs to create a basic synth?

If not why of all possible modules one could (re)create would they have chosen these particular ones?

These bullet points pretty much sum up the whole Behringer convo nicely.

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Whatever you’re seeing here, I must admit that I don’t. Are you complaining about the copying of function, or of appearance? Or perhaps both? Which of these is supposed to be exclusive? Is it simply the idea that we could choose between two sources for substantially the same item?

I think, you are viewing from the consumer perspective only, @Bitnik. For the consumer it’s obviously nice to be able to choose between the two and have a cheaper option for the same (or very similar) thing. But for a (small) company like intellijel it’s bad if they spend a lot of time, money and effort to develop something and then a big company comes and just copies it, sells it for less and threaten your existence.

I think it’s difficult. In general I am not a friend at all of copyright and patents!! And I think I would be okay with a small company or individual “stealing” ideas / copying (I put it in “” because at the core (?) I don’t think you can steal ideas, or other things where there is no scarcity) from a big/rich company. But what I have even more than bad (copyright) laws, is laws that only apply to the “small” people/companies. I think, if anyone without a big crowd of lawyers tried to copy/steal from a huge company, they will just cover them with charges!

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Big companies do use the legal process to intimidate rivals even in circumstances where any such case would be laughed out of court. The companies rely on the impecunious small producer leaving the field rather than suffer the costs of defending. This is horrible and it does heavily impact smaller companies, boutique producers and the like.

But I don’t see any issue with small companies and even individuals facing competition. If something is easy to do well I don’t think we normally have any business making it harder. The exception, a power that modern states inherited from monarchs, is the patent, and its modern-day justification is to encourage public disclosure of genuinely ingenious processes which might otherwise be lost due to trade secrets. Patents by intention lapse into the public domain with the passage of time, typically a decade or two.

The patent restriction doesn’t apply here because no great secret is disclosed. The fact that people like to have things they use look a certain way and exhibit predictable behaviour, and it may take a lot of effort and skill to get it right, isn’t enough justification to deny other producers a right to copy good ideas. In fact, the primary purpose of patent law, and a justification of capitalism, is to facilitate that competitive process.

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I don’t agree!

It is true that the invention has to be disclosed, but the purpose is not to to make it available to the public. Quite the contrary, a patent gives exclusive right of use for IP. Note that patents can also last much longer, and in Europe the minimal duration is 20 years. Let me recommend you the EFF Stupid Patent of the Month though!

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I think my point would easily survive a marxist analysis. Although I emphasize here the role of the patent licence in bolstering competition by encouraging disclosure, it couldn’t exist at all in the kind of laissez-faire system Marx studied and criticised.

Twenty years isn’t that long. Drugs that were under patent licence during my youth not so long ago have now been generic for many decades. If you want to criticise intellectual property law, the monopolistic aspects of copyright law make better targets. It’s still illegal to copy and distribute an unauthorised text of Brave New World, although that novel is 89 years old and its author died nearly six decades ago.