JP6K 1.7 update (64 bit)

[antto]

why would they care for a product that they no longer produce..

[PH4SER]

All useless advice. Great sounding synth! Put it out the way you intended. Don't listen to these nerds. You're not going to get sued.
Does anyone have any balls around here? Geez...

[antto]

+1

[VitaminD]

why would they care for a product that they no longer produce..

hmm.. I'm by far no lawyer.. but I'd wager because Trademarks and Copyrights are highly valuable.. and for the same reason that a certain cable manufacturer sues anyone with a name remotely like theirs, they claim its to keep their stature and their name strong. I think of it as a legal moat.. you're setting precedence if your lawsuit flies to go after others.. the more lawsuits you invoke, the larger that moat..

If I have a company named Cheese Cables and our cables are yellow, I might sue anyone with 'Cheese' in their name (regardless of what they sell) or if they sell yellow cables (regardless of their company name). The same goes for any corporation -- I think part of the thinking is the more lawsuits I create, the stronger my brand name becomes.. since either these people are going to change their naming or their product's likeness from mine..

Even if it sounded different, if it looks the same.. thats probably enough.. It would go something like this: "Your replication of our famous ___________ (insert Synth, Effect, or other random product line) trade dress has created tremendous damage to _________ (insert name of company) and our reputation."

At least thats my non-lawyer-esque guess.. from looking at the past of the company in question..

[AdmiralQuality]

Beautiful GUI!

And I wouldn't worry about legal stuff. I don't think you can copyright the look of a synth, there's plenty of examples of other softsynths out there that have gotten away with the look-alike thing. Just stay away from their trademarks.

Good luck with it!

[VitaminD]

Beautiful GUI!

And I wouldn't worry about legal stuff. I don't think you can copyright the look of a synth, there's plenty of examples of other softsynths out there that have gotten away with the look-alike thing. Just stay away from their trademarks.

Copyright protection maybe not so much.. Trade Dress protection maybe a bit more..

http://www.wilmerhale.com/publications/ ... cation=878

Also remember when DiscoDSP Discovery used to look like a NL.. I'm sure there is a reason why that skin was no longer included in the installer..


Look at it this way.. if you had a product.. and then later on someone else created something that looked and functioned similarly.. but the clone was buggy... or it caused consumer's CPUs to explode.. you probably wouldn't want their product to look like yours. One could argue others would think you created the bad (clone) product and thus would no longer want your products.. I'll say directly (since I know someone will try to pull something out of this that isnt there) that I don't think this is the case here in any way.. but I'm willing to bet that is part of what the big suits would try to argue. Among attempting to shoehorn or leech.. there

No one wants anything bad to happen here.. because we all want to see this thing take flight.. it sounds amazing.

[AdmiralQuality]

Beautiful GUI!

And I wouldn't worry about legal stuff. I don't think you can copyright the look of a synth, there's plenty of examples of other softsynths out there that have gotten away with the look-alike thing. Just stay away from their trademarks.

http://www.wilmerhale.com/publications/ ... cation=878

Also remember when DiscoDSP Discovery used to look like a NL.. I'm sure there is a reason why that skin was no longer included in the installer..


Look at it this way.. if you had a product.. and then later on someone else created something that looked and functioned similarly.. but the clone was buggy... or it caused consumer's CPUs to explode.. you probably wouldn't want their product to look like yours. One could argue others would think you created the bad (clone) product and thus would no longer want your products.. I'll say directly (since I know someone will try to pull something out of this that isnt there) that I don't think this is the case here in any way.. but I'm willing to bet that is what the big suits would try to argue.

No one wants anything bad to happen here.. because we all want to see this thing take flight.. it sounds amazing.

The worst that would happen is receiving a nasty cease and desist letter with some vague threats. At which point, change it (and bask in the free publicity -- "the synth so awesome the big music company made us change it"). It looks like the GUI's already done, so I'd only waste the time to make a new one if they force it.

Just like the page you linked to says, "With respect to software, copyright law may protect individual elements like icons or configurations of those elements, but may not be adequate to protect the dynamic whole of the interface." Also keep in mind, a JP-8000 isn't software, it's hardware.

I could pull up about 20 look-alike products out of the KVR plug-in database if I wasn't feeling so lazy right now. A few off the top of my head... OPX, Memorymoon, the Hahaha synths, and something I forget the name of that looks just like a Juno-106. There's tons more... (not including the Arturia clones where they've obviously worked out deals with the original manufacturers and can brand the product with the original trademarked names.)

[VitaminD]

The worst that would happen is receiving a nasty cease and desist letter with some vague threats. At which point, change it (and bask in the free publicity -- "the synth so awesome the big music company made us change it"). It looks like the GUI's already done, so I'd only waste the time to make a new one if they force it.

Just like the page you linked to says, "With respect to software, copyright law may protect individual elements like icons or configurations of those elements, but may not be adequate to protect the dynamic whole of the interface." Also keep in mind, a JP-8000 isn't software, it's hardware.

I could pull up about 20 look-alike products out of the KVR plug-in database if I wasn't feeling so lazy right now. A few off the top of my head... OPX, Memorymoon, the Hahaha synths, and something I forget the name of that looks just like a Juno-106. There's tons more... (not including the Arturia clones where they've obviously worked out deals with the original manufacturers and can brand the product with the original trademarked names.)

Yes. However, I thought that is exactly what they were trying to avoid.. If the product is using a color scheme and knob design that looks like another company's product.. then one might have a problem..

I think it all comes down to the desire of the company to want to care about this or to look a blind eye. It would be foolish to do the equivalent of closing your eyes and saying 'cant see you, cant hurt me' which this would be.. the point I think most of us are making is.. be aware you might be on shaky ground with something that looks and sounds so much like a commercial product. Maybe nothing will happen.. we don't know. But the fact that the similarities between this app and a commercial product have been mentioned so many times in a public forum gives their legal team even more ammo I suppose if they wanted to do something.. its gray territory.

[trimph1]

Wow. Just. Wow.

Like the looks of the GUI.

Don't like the looks of the copyright debate forming here. I find this rather funny. I do think that we are starting to see a need to rethink the GUI into a completely radically different look---totally unlike anything seen before---good luck with that---sheeesh. All softsynths are involved with sliders and knobs. I wonder what other forms of inputs are needed to make GUI's totally different then---

As for the comment that there are plenty others that got released using the same look as the hardware synths--there are ton's out there that look really similar to each other And I don't see people having a harry canary over them so------why should this one be treated differently?

[GeorgeZ]

All this debating, about this particular plug-in is quite useless, as Adam has already indicated that he'll be changing the GUI. End of story really.

[AdmiralQuality]

The only thing I think would be an issue would be the "Ronald", which I'd change to something more different. Everything else IMHO is fair use. Campbell's soup can't sue Andy Warhol, because he wasn't selling soup.

The "Ronald" is funny though. Reminds me of when I used to play a Saturn 09 and I blacked out the diagonal line in the "R" with marker pen so it spelled "Poland" on the back. I figured, why advertise a company when I can advertise a whole country?

[PH4SER]

Don't change the GUI. It looks fantastic like it is. More people have TAL Bassline than you could count. What synth/company is that supposed to be?
Just an example. Why would anyone on a creative music forum try to dissuade another from going with their gut and going for it.

[antto]

...
Maybe nothing will happen.. we don't know.
...

we'll soon know

[pdxindy]

No its not synthedit, its SM (sorry mac guys but ive read rumors that later it might be on mac too ), it allows me to do some awesome graphical things.

Crash... so much for that being interesting...

[pdxindy]

Why play the Roland angle at all ? It's just begging for trouble. Just call it Sven and if people like it,they like it. It's as easy as that really. I wouldn't even hint in the Roland direction,just describe what it does and that's that.

+1

Just stay away from any hint of Roland... (except the sound)