c0nsumer

Just to note, while end-to-end complete, the info I'd provided on the MIDIbox SID-NUXX was not a kit. One still had to source all their own parts from PCBs to switches to wall wart, and find replacements if the listed parts weren't available. (I presume some aren't, as the BOM is a year old or so.) Just to chime in, the front and rear panels were done by Front Panel Express. Anyone can have them made. (FPE is expensive, but it's one of the simplest ways to get accurate low-quantity front panel milling + coloring done.)

My issue was because there was nothing in the auction which actually claimed it to be the MIDIbox SID-NUXX, it just said that "This is basically this version sidbox -SID NUXX". It never claimed that it was, and the only proof I have that the item in the auction is infringing on my IP is my recognition of the blurry photos of the PCBs. After the notice was sent to eBay I received a reply a few days later stating that the claim was "uncertain". I then communicated high res pictures of the PCB to eBay, who took until after the auction closed to continue declaring that the state of the claim was 'uncertain'. For the newly listed auctions, there is nothing in the pictures text which points to the MIDIbox SID-NUXX, making any claim I would have against those auctions invalid. It's frustrating, but there's no way to prove that those involve my design.

I hope I'm not drudging up crap again, but as the MIDIbox SID-NUXX design runs stock MIOS / SID app (again, the only changes are to config options so that it'll compile and run on the particular PIC / control surface / EEPROM used), I'd think TK's IP would be wholly valid for pulling these (now multiple) auctions. I didn't intend for the site to read like a fork, but a one-off "here's what I did, none of the rights to software and designs which mine is based on are mine". If you think it should be changed from its current reading to further reenforce this, I'll gladly do that. -Steve

I felt that sharing my work was the best possible thing that could be done. I did a good bit of original work, documented everything well, and shared it back with the restriction (on my work only) that changes to it be re-shared and that it not be used for commercial purposes. It was wholly done in the spirit of a community project. 56 hours elapsed between my fax being sent and first contact from eBay. I replied to eBay within a few minutes with supporting photos, license info, and links to information about my project (including the strings of text used in the eBay auction) and it took eBay another 18 hours to respond to that. Additionally, because eBay will not earn final value fees on canceled items, eBay has a distinct financial interest in not enforcing the IP rights of small individuals / groups who cannot legally threaten them. That's precisely it. Because I do not have rights to the MIDIbox stuffs (only the MIDIbox SID-NUXX PCB designs and the content on the page) I can't rightfully make a request based on the MIDIbox IP. Additionally, as part of acquiring a non-profit license for CadSoft EAGLE I entered into a legal agreement that resulting designs would not be used for for-profit work. While it sounds distasteful, this legal agreement holds more legal weight than a feeling of community, regardless of how strong those feelings are. That is the foremost reason why this was my reason / justification for desiring that this auction be removed. And, I tried. Unfortunately the second message from eBay also declared the rights issue to be 'unclear'. I can somewhat understand eBay's stance, as the auction does not make it clear that there is any direct link to either MIDIbox, MIDIbox SID, or my MIDIbox SID-NUXX. I thought that providing correlating photographic proof that parts of the auction are from designs licensed not for commercial sale, but it clearly wasn't enough. (In eBay's defense, I can see easy confusion between right of first sale and a violation of copyright -- which these boards are -- because eBay has no proof that the seller had the boards manufactured himself. This would also be something very difficult to prove, because the only proof I have of it is a single piece of email from the seller saying that he had the boards made via PCBEXPRESS.) -Steve

If you want to, go for it. I went to bed for a while and he went offline, so I'm not sure what happened. I can't sleep (slept in today, and thinking about this a lot) so I just popped back here to see the status of things. Hell, maybe I'll try sniping it as well. I'm usually good at that. Crap, and it ended as I was typing that. Well, hopefully that's someone who will tag it as counterfit or whatever. Guess I'll try going back to sleep. Goodnight. :) -Steve

Well, a couple things. First, my sockpuppet account was pretty poorly named (not sure what I was thinking there -- I was in a hurry and frustrated), and the bid was axed. Then my next bid (from the c0nsumer account) was axed, and I can't create new eBay accounts anymore. I think a friend is going to bid it up, but I'm not sure. I'm done. I tried. I asked for help, I filed the appropriate paperwork with eBay as soon as I had access to a fax machine, I communicated with eBay as quickly as possible, and despite my efforts the whole conversation here eventually took a turn which began to blame my sharing for the woes mentioned in this thread. All the time spent on the MIDIbox SID-NUXX was done with the intention of sharing all the work done, as I think can be seen from the release, how everything was posted, the license on my portion of things, etc. It was all done with the best of intentions, and now I see that trying to contribute back to a project has bit me in the ass. I've pulled down all the CAD files (both EAGLE files and rendered photoplotter/drill files) from my site, pulled all the MIDIbox SID-NUXX-specific binaries (these were just the normal MIOS / SID / whatever files compiled for the PIC itself with control surface changes), and updated the text appropriately. It's now just a well photographed, extensive documentation of what I did and what parts I used. Hopefully that's enough for everyone. -Steve

Yep, and my high bid just got yanked. I tried to create another, but now it's CC verification time again. Bidding (obviously) can't be done under my actual username of 'c0nsumer' because as he and I have had contact via that account he'll cancel that. But, I'll bid anyway.

Huh. Last time I went through the sign-up process a credit card was needed. Well, that's all set. I'll try and stay up until the auction closes, but that'll be real late here.

I tried to take care of it, and the win-at-all-costs option will not resolve it. It'll squash one auction and leave the seller with a box to re-list. I don't think it'll have any actual effect. I did *not* say that I wanted either of them to take care of it. Please read what I said. I said that despite my filed dispute it does not look like it'll get taken care of unless either one of them do it. That does not not say that I wanted it done for me.

As discussed previously in this thread that would only serve to get me negative feedback. My eBay reputation is more important, because anyone who sticks MIDIbox SID-NUXX into any search engine will see what the completed device is supposed to look like. I'm not worried about the MIDIbox reputation, I just want to stop this person from making money off of my work, which is (at least in part) the terms of the license I agreed to with the PCB CAD software purchase. -Steve

~36 hours since faxing off the paperwork and nothing. I made sure it all went through, too... It doesn't look like this is going to get pulled down, unless either SmashTV or TK already have things on file with eBay and can get it pulled.

Davo, The problem with this auction is a bit more complex. On top of TK's IP (MIDIbox) there is my IP (MIDIbox SID-NUXX PCB design). The PCB in there is my board design which is not licensed for commercial resale, which I would define as for-profit resale on an open market like eBay. With the seller's history with the MIDIbox project and current price, that is most likely for profit. Looking at the parts he used and the quality of the construction, he's probably got about $50 - $80 into that project. Additionally, the software I used to design the PCB (EAGLE) was purchased under a non-profit license which states that items designed with it must not be sold for profit. (I actually have a separate EAGLE Lite license for the commercial work I do, as thus far all that work has fit within the confines of it.) If a group of people got together, grabbed my design and did a group buy based on it, I'd be quite happy about it and would probably offer them my support. This is completely different. He (Flavio, the seller) had actually emailed me at the beginning of August asking for help getting his board working. As typical when I find out that someone new is building a MIDIbox SID-NUXX design I was initially flattered, but he was really terse and seemed to demand support. I helped him a bit, then I never heard anything back. Now I find the device on eBay a couple weeks later. What an ass. -Steve

No, I don't believe so, especially not if you have enough smoothing caps. Anyway, the SIDs are so damn noisy I doubt you'll notice it much anyway. (I've had this idea running around in my head for a while, because once I finally get a legal license of Eagle to do open-source PCBs which are the size of a PT-10 I'm hoping to do an 8-SID with full control surface, and all design documents made available to anyone who wants them. (I'd hopefully also do art similar to my x0xb0x art, full-on 8 ins and outs [via stereo jacks], etc.)

Bah. Thanks for letting me know... My feedback is currently 194 or so, 100%. I'd rather not tarnish that... I guess I'll just have to wait and see if the IP dispute goes through. :\

Just curious, why not set up a series of switching regulators for the digital stuff, then some lower amperage linear for things like the SID and op amps? You'd dissipate far less heat, especially with the amount of power taken up by something like a bank of LEDs, the LCD, and all the ICs. It'd be a lot more efficient too. I've been thinking of doing this for a while, but just haven't gotten around to doing it.

Paperwork was faxed to eBay at 08:59 EDT. It's now a bit over four hours later and I still haven't heard anything from them. Hopefully it'll get sorted out before the auction ends. I'm tempted to win it at all costs and then just not pay, filing a dispute with eBay over it. However, I'm not sure how well that'll work out for me in the end.

With all those flying wires he also destroyed the isolation (physical and via top/bottom ground planes) of the audio channels going to and from the 1/4" jacks. (Not that I imagine it helps much with the noisy as hell 6581, but I still designed the isolation in as best I could...)

He just replied to my eBay question, so there's at least a line of communication open here. I made sure to also contact him at his personal address. We'll see where this all goes... Heh. At least I'm not bored. :) -Steve

I already replied to your PM, but I'm going to do it here as well just in case other people want to chime in. That'll be happening first thing in the morning. For reference, the required form can be found here. Yeah, Matrixsynth posts some pretty... Adwords-grabbing things. Loads and loads of posts... I'm glad he posted this, though, because then I was able to see it. I really appreciate that. It turns out he had emailed me asking for some help with it in the past. The subject of his message alluded to his having had the boards manufactured himself at PCBEXPRESS. I'm fairly certain that the couple people I sent boards to (two, if I remember right, one in southern California and one in Australia) actually completed their devices and regularly use them. This guy really didn't seem to know what he was doing, saying that he was only seeing "all squares" on the LCD, asking if the PIC16F88 had to be programmed, and saying things like "I don't have smoke so at least nothing is burned out from a mistake or bad soldering." Worst case I'll win the auction at whatever price is needed then sort it out with eBay corporate later. I've got the feedback to take a negative if it comes down to it. Thanks again for your help with this... I'll be sure to post the results of it all here. -Steve

This is odd. I just noticed that someone is selling a MIDIbox SID (290153272206) which is based on one of my MIDIbox SID-NUXX PCBs. With the software used for the development of that PCB being non-profit I licensed the board design under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial license. That means he can't sell the board. I've contacted him via eBay as well as contacting the owner of the blog which pointed to the auction so I can try and get in touch with the seller directly. I sent a couple individuals spare PCBs for free, so I'm not sure if this is someone I helped build one or if they had the boards manufactured on their own. Either way, it's a bit frustrating. I haven't found myself in a position to have to enforce my own IP this way. <sigh> Well, here goes... (I'm trying to do it by talking to the seller and asking them to take down the auction as opposed to just asking eBay themselves to cancel it.) -Steve

Advance Circuits is great. I've had mixed luck with PCBFABEXPRESS (bad board, poor customer service, but they reconciled it all), but I'd probably order from them again. PCBex.com is also all-right, but your boards are batched out to China and take about 2.5 weeks to arrive. Board quality was quite good, but there was a delay. The Airborne Express delivery also required a signature, which was a pain for me working a normal schedule and living about 20 miles from the depot. -Steve

Have any of you run Eagle for Windows under virtualization on Mac or Linux? My Eagle license is a Windows-only one at the moment and I'm not sure I want to add the cost of dual licensing to the cost of getting a Intel mac... -Steve

You shouldn't wreck anything. Either buy stand-alone SIDs, ask friends with broken C64s for them, or buy 'for parts' C64s on eBay. Trashing a wholly working vintage computer just to rip out one chip is rather wasteful. -Steve

Oh, yeah. Sorry. :) It's sold... And stryd_one, sorry, I haven't had a chance to reply to the PM yet. I'm at my parents house for holiday stuffs. I should have a chance to later this evening or possibly tomorrow. -Steve

Anyone interested in buying my USB Oscilloscope from Hobbylab? It's the same one seen here. Images of the exact item itself can be found here. The reason I'm selling it is because it has had barely any use in time I've had it, and I find I just simply don't use it. Price-wise I'm asking US$150, which includes shipping anywhere in the world via First Class US Mail (Airmail). It'll come with all the original parts. Like I said, I'm just not needing it. It works great, but I figure that someone else could probably get better use out of it than I would. Contact me here, via PMs, or via AIM at Iamc0nsumer (that's a zero, not an oh in the name) if you are interested. For reference, feel free to check my eBay feedback here. Thanks! -Steve