The Boys Are Hungry

Someone once said to me, “Be careful, the boys are hungry out there.” This refers to the theft of ideas on the Internet. If I have what I believe to be a winning electronic concept, I may develop several embodiments of the same. So last year I designed a “Super Simple Counter”. Embodiment A was published in a British magazine, Embodiment B was published on this blog (see http://thomasscarborough.blogspot.com/2009/01/simple-counter.html), and Embodiment C was due to be published in Australia. Yet before Embodiment C could be published, someone "borrowed" Embodiment B, and had this published in Australia (the "borrower" has duly been paid for his efforts). I wrote immediately to my Australian editor: “May I withdraw [Embodiment C]?” The reason is that I wouldn’t want Embodiment C to be seen as a copied concept (a copy of the copy)! OBSERVATION: Sometimes there are “straight copies”, and sometimes there are minor modifications -- as simple, sometimes, as substituting equivalent parts. In this case, my design was creatively modified, although it was plain to see that it was a copy. See http://thomasscarborough.blogspot.com/2007/09/disco-craze.html for a visual example of a copy of one of my designs. It’s not the same, but you'll see that it’s a copy.