> i can copyright anything i draw - ....
ANYthing you CREATE is copyright at birth.
> even if it's patterned from another design?
Yes, even if you plagiarize, YOUR pen-strokes and layout proportions are YOUR creation, and your copyright. This may do you no good, since you may not be able to sell copies without an objection from the work yours is based on.
I draw Mickey Mouse. My specific drawing and exact (xerox, photo) copies are my creation. Now you copy my drawing. If you use "any" creativity, you got your own copyright. If you make a literal copy of my work, I can call "infringement!" on you. But when we go to court and word gets around. Mickey's lawyers jump on me and you, and neither of us will be making copies of any Mickey.
Actually that's a bad example. Mickey would have to claim trademark infringement (unless I zeroxed him).
(That gets into the hard-cold facts of copyright law: the bigger mouse gets the cheese.)
Oddly, circuits can not be copyright. There may be heavy creativity, but also nearly everything has been done before. I feel this is a murky area which should be handled better, but nobody has agitated to get it changed.
A xerox copy of a schematic is copyright infringement.
A re-drawing of a schematic is not infringement.
A novel circuit with a description of benefits (and the fee) may be patented. Many audio patents could be argued and invalidated, but it is usually easier to evade (do it similar but different from the patent claims). Probably less than 1% of audio patents sell enough to cover the patent fees.
> that just doesn't seem right.
What is "right"? It's not in the Ten Commandments (or whatever stones you accept as authority). "We" (especially the bigger mice) decide what is "right".
Thomas Jefferson was opposed to patents, at first. Partly because english kings would grant letters of patent on stupid things like candy confections. Later Jefferson realized that protected public disclosure of socially useful inventions was better than inventors keeping secrets because that's the only way they could profit.
Charles Dickens wrote stuff, was paid on publication. Most stuff published is drek, but his stuff got re-printed a LOT without payment. He died poor and his widow was broke. Someone said "this is not right" and got copyright laws enacted. At first for limited time, but Mickey and friends agitated for more liberal terms. Anything copyright today will probably be copyright forever, though Moore's Law may undermine the idea of "copy".
US trademark law is such a mess, proof that "right" is a very fluid concept. In the US, trademark was mostly state law but global trade agreements may force some rationalization.
> Completely remove the 1 ohm resistor
I wonder if it is already "removed"? 400V, 1 ohm, 400 Amps.... 160,000 Watts. Much less after only 1/25 of a millisecond, but no sane-size resistor has surge rating that large.
Topic: MOD KIT NOISES? (Read 8808 times)