Mic & Mod - general

As usual, I will chime in to point out that these guys (Mic & Mod) have a reputation for selling other people's work (PCB designs, etc.) without any attribution, etc. If that bothers you, most of this stuff is still available via Group DIY and other sites, often from the people who did the original work.

- John

Honestly, a LOT of cloners used people's work without attribution.  I know of a few designs and ideas I did that got put into both clones and commercial works.  It's just what happens when you put things online.

Yeah this is the problem with open source, the guys behind it put everything out there and expect everyone to abide by their rules.
Some even think that if you put up some rules to join / post that these same rules apply to some guy who is lurking.
If I post something any where in public it’s public domain, if example I say “ why doesn’t someone make a 500 series module with Low, high pass and an all pass alignment filter in one module?” And Chris starts building them I expect nothing as far as credit or compensation ( but SAVART would probably credit me for the idea). Now if that conversation is in private I’m probably going to expect something.
Also on the subject of Group DIY IP and credit, 99# percent of the group DIY projects are based on at one time was protected IP, funny how there is this habit of putting someone who reverse engineers someone else’s work and the credit goes to the guy who took that knowledge and ran with it, but if someone uses that guy’s reversion without acknowledgement. Well that’s bad!

I don't recall the specifics but I have seen this mentioned many times over the last several years, by numerous people. While using old designs for small DIY group projects is one thing, when someone takes the hard work that the hobbyist put in and builds a website selling the results of that work for profit, I can understand the controversy. I wouldn't want to put in all that unpaid work, for the sake of the community, for someone to make money off it without asking or acknowledging. Of course, it's up to each individual to decide how that strikes them. Again, even though I looked into it years ago, I don't recall the specifics so I don't want to smear this company if I misunderstood the situation. I'd encourage anyone who cares to look into it. 

Yeah, these guys did not just grab gerber files from github and set up shop or anything like that. They took circuit boards people were selling on Group DIY, copied them and passed them off as their own original work, competing directly with the folks that actually put in the real work. If that does not bother you, please simply ignore my posts, but I WILL continue to call these people out so that folks that DO care about this kind of thing know the score.

- John

+100 to jcgriggs and kcatthedog . And for those that don't care about what their money supports and just care about having a kit with paint by numbers, well, you're getting screwed there as well with the mark-ups / prices. maybe that's the price you pay for not having scruples! seriously, their prices are worse than mic-parts (not a complement to MP to be clear). Both of these outfits appear to buy in bulk from the same places end-users can now get mic bodies, capsules etc. but charge you dearly for it.

I'll never buy from M&M, but then again, I've also had some pretty illogical and just down right belligerent interactions with one of the 'victims' of this story (completely unrelated matter), so it's hard not to think there was a bit of karma there! He definitely got his work ripped off, no doubt, but it's not like the work was of novel designs; it was purely translating the work Neumann and AKG to new PCBs. There wasn't anywhere near the same level of R&D that the guys who originally developed these circuits put in.

markfouxman builds a lot of his mic components in house with his own R&D for the products, far more than other larger outfits, so I get his point that even the supposed victims in that debacle are standing on the shoulders of giants, and didn't really develop the circuits themselves. they just did accurate translations of schematics worked out by others. Seems most mic companies these days have some element of this and Mark is far from the norm in a great way by advancing the field vs. just recycling old ideas. I don't mean this to read like a purity test, just that there are shades of grey in all of this at GDIY, some small outfits get white glove treatment, others of similar ilk* get banned, I don't really understand the moderators' logic or motives at times. Still, it's far better than GS, as is this place!

*ilk = genuine mic enthusiasts and not with sinister motives, doing some of their own old schematic -> PCB/kit work. in some ways, banned guys (not mic and mod) have done more unique / less clone stuff than the 'victim' <- nothing sarcastic about this phrase, just an alternative for using the company name.