i just found this on e-bay, they cant just take a pic of some ones work can they ?
LM3886 X2 Parallel Mono amplifier board | eBay
(real one)
PA100 DIY 2x LM3886 in parallel gainclone audio amplifier
LM3886 X2 Parallel Mono amplifier board | eBay
(real one)
PA100 DIY 2x LM3886 in parallel gainclone audio amplifier
The zoe_tsang PCB seems sufficiently different from the shine7 PCB that it cannot simply be called Copy-&-Paste. And the pin layout does not allow that many extremely different PCB layouts.
And, yes, they can do this, if whoever of them made the first design did not invest money in copyright protection. It is also highly questionable if a PCB layout for a datasheet application of a chipamp is worthy of copyright protection at all.
And, yes, they can do this, if whoever of them made the first design did not invest money in copyright protection. It is also highly questionable if a PCB layout for a datasheet application of a chipamp is worthy of copyright protection at all.
Under UK (and European?) law copyright automatically exists and belongs to the creator of a work, so any unauthorised copying is an offence. Not the same everywhere else in the world. Some have different copyright law, others just ignore whatever law they (in theory) have. People who happily buy 'Chinese copies' encourage this.
That is the problem. Using someone elses work for the promotion and sale of their product.
If the work is worthy of protection. So the question remains, is making a PCB for a schematic that is basically copied from a datsheet worthy of any copyright protection?
Given that you can produce many different but equivalent PCB layouts, any one of them could be regarded as a substantial work and so protected by copyright. Copyright in the circuit may rest with the chip maker, and they probably assume that their customers will more or less copy their circuits. I think (I may be wrong) that copyright cannot be used to protect something which can only be expressed in one way, so there is no creativity in it. The creativity does not have to be very profound, merely present in some form.
I suppose one way to look at it is: if copying it would save me work, then it must involve creativity to produce it, and therefore I am infringing copyright if I copy it without permission. If it is worth copying, then it is protected!
I suppose one way to look at it is: if copying it would save me work, then it must involve creativity to produce it, and therefore I am infringing copyright if I copy it without permission. If it is worth copying, then it is protected!
I would venture a no. My understanding is that the circuit is protected, but peripheral things like the PCB and BOM are not. In this case, being from the datasheet the circuit is most likely PD. I may be in error. I'm more certain that a visual rendering, whether executed with paint and canvas or photographic film, is certainly protected.
In the UK the safest assumption is that everything is covered by copyright. However, the gvernment has just announced a relaxation of some of the rules. We will soon be allowed to copy music we have bought from CD to MP3 - people elsewhere are often surprised to learn that this is currently unlawful here. Not enforced of course, that would be impractical.
That's technically unlawful here as well. The burning-CDs-to-hard-drive deal that I do is also unlawful. The RIAA bought and sold one of our political parties, so our laws with respect to digital media are astonishingly comprehensive and harsh.
For the cases where I know the performers, I usually ask permission, and the usual reaction is a look of disbelief that I'd even bother to ask.
For the cases where I know the performers, I usually ask permission, and the usual reaction is a look of disbelief that I'd even bother to ask.
Copyright applies to the picture if the owner does not grant permission to use it. The amp boards themselves differ enough that it's not a 1:1 copy, too much prior art and similarities exist with amp boards to say something roughly the same is an infringement.
BOM, it's not copyrighted unless reproduced exactly in writing layout, parts brands, etc. and presented as a BOM, not just a board built with the same component values in someone else's BOM. General circuits from chip manufacturer datasheets and other datasheet info is definitely not copyrighted, manufacturer expressly gives this info to use their chip (product) for making a for-sale product that implements that chip.
Now having written that, if you have an especially unique functionality from your circuit you can PATENT that subcircuit in the amp, but whether that patent holds up in court is another story when talking about sonic differences or electrical function if other parts of the amp (product) as a whole differs and considering that these basic circuits used have been around for decades, again there's the issue of so much prior art existing.
BOM, it's not copyrighted unless reproduced exactly in writing layout, parts brands, etc. and presented as a BOM, not just a board built with the same component values in someone else's BOM. General circuits from chip manufacturer datasheets and other datasheet info is definitely not copyrighted, manufacturer expressly gives this info to use their chip (product) for making a for-sale product that implements that chip.
Now having written that, if you have an especially unique functionality from your circuit you can PATENT that subcircuit in the amp, but whether that patent holds up in court is another story when talking about sonic differences or electrical function if other parts of the amp (product) as a whole differs and considering that these basic circuits used have been around for decades, again there's the issue of so much prior art existing.
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