You are right, but they‘ve done so not with their own designs but mainly by shamelessly jacking other companies’ IP (primarily Moog and DSI lol) - at times copying not only classics but current models (see Crave / Moog Mother 32, Spice/SubHarmonicon, Edge/DFAM etc)
Considering what these brands in particular have done for synthesis and synth culture, I can certainly understand why more than a few people (including me) would be upset about Behringer’s business practices.
Imagine being sued by them for calling the edge a copy of the dfam. Something similar happened to people on gearslutz.
Believing in the sanctity of IP is for the courts and capitalism’s true believers, I’m neither. Those companies are not actually being hurt by Behringer, their market is growing
It is hard to see how Behringer has helped Arturia in any way.
My money is on the edge negatively impacting DFAM sales; it will be a few months before we can know, and Moog would have to tell us. Likewise with MakeNoise and Maths; that was their biggest seller, it is hard to imagine the eurorack market is so large that the Abacus will sell only to people that would never have bought a Maths.
The smart thing for Behringer to do from an amoral business perspective is to sell the Abacus so cheaply that Make Noise essentially has to give up on the product. Behringer isn’t dumb, and ‘amoral’ may be an apt descriptor.
IDK Make noise are hiring all the time, and me and everyone i know in euro will never buy the ugly behringer clones, we use make noise. But i think it’s silly to rip on them. That’s like being pissed about generic food or squiers. There are so many atrocities in the world, i don’t think Arturia is going to go broke from their clone, look at how popular V collection is and how many new products they release. They made a pro version of the keyboard that’s a million times better than swing. Make Noise could be pushed to make a Maths 2 that remembers your Cycle duty and adds a function or two. I wouldn’t mind that. Moog might go broke from their business practices (supposedly poor workmanship hurting their reputation among other issues with the way the owners handle employee relations) but tbh i have serious doubts it is because of Behringer. And I just don’t care about the “morality” of markets. They are inherently amoral, there’s no reason to point fingers.
This whole argument to me reminds me more of people getting mad that their favorite band got so big that they spawned imitators. All wrapped up in the conceptof IP being some kind of moral boundary and not a legal mechanism commonly utilized for monopolization and self enrichment. Totally fictitious moral paradigm imo.
For this to be true of the entire eurorack market, Behringer would have to be dumb.
They are not dumb - far more likely that you and your immediate network connections are not a representative sample of the euro market.
I have a mass of synths/sampler/drum machines etc the only two pieces of Behringer kit I own are the PX3000 Patchbay & Eurorack 960 Sequencer.
The 960 Sequencer now costs £132, I was totally blew away with the build quality when I got my hands on it. I’ve built lots of DIY Eurorack modules therefore have an understanding of components, which are quality and which are cheap.
I have no issue buying Behringer, I’ll probably get the Pro-800 when released.
Burberry sued Target for making cloths with a check pattern that was too close to their iconic pattern.
World Industries got cease a desist letters all the time for infringement. They never got sued because they would change their designs every month to avoid getting sued.
Fictitious it is not
https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/knockoff-products-and-the-potential-for-lawsuits-48390
behr have been TOO close on many products. And I’m surprised no one has done anything.
Burberry had like 200 years in business without target producing a similar print. Should they get exclusivity over their design until the end of time —from a moral standpoint? As I said, let the lawyers sort it out , it’s not some every day person’s cause. It’s not a moral crisis and the ethics of business are already horrible, billions are exploited and hungry thanks to the global economic system, whether the company is large or small. I just wish people would go find a real cause. You could take down Behringer and it would do nothing to reduce the mass suffering in the world
Also, Roland takes them to court all the time, Mutron did, and sequential is trying to get their own trade dress protections for the prophet. They see what they can get away with and then change according to what the courts order. It’s obviously not admirable or anything but if you don’t like it, what you dislike is not Behringer but a world in which giant companies are allowed to exist in the first place. You can’t tame the beasts within capitalism, they find a way to take control of governments and rewrite the rules for themselves every time.
A completely different issue. That’s something that is greater than all of this. But that isn’t what we are taking about and kind of a lame deflection.
Of course world hunger is a massive issue 🫤
No, zeroing in on a synth company on a forum simply because you enjoy synths, instead of directing that effort toward durable reforms inscribed in law that would make a difference, is the real deflection! All due respect to you though, I’m not trying to be personal here.
Don’t help that guy being choked over there because that building is on fire.
what makes you think I’m taking it personally 
We can walk and chew gum, but if enough people are convinced that if they chew gum then they don’t have to walk, then the performative exercise of castigating Behringer does real harm
There are loads of people who never think about politics until their expensive synth collection is getting cloned making them feel less special, and instead of acknowledging that the clone is a symptom of way bigger systemic issues, the fire off a screed and never again think about what kind of legislation allows for companies to make billions while they are broke
The Behringer Moog clones aren’t clones though, copies sure but not in the same league at all. There’s enough difference there imo to set them apart in significant ways.
Behringer are pretty scummy as a company though, what they did to Peter Kirn was awful and I don’t buy their stuff… new, at least. Disney, Starbucks, Amazon & all the rest are as bad or worse, i try to avoid shitty companies but there’s realistically only so much individual action can achieve.
People say this a lot, but it is an empirical question - does demand for the Moog originals get reduced as these copies come on the market? Moog isn’t saying, but they did institute some across the board sales around the time the “edges getting boxed up” threat-images circulated. That isn’t what you do if your market position is secure.
There was also that situation with Oberheim, which starts off sounding like a service to the community but quickly transpired was the conclusion of a villain arc.
“Tom Oberheim is a pioneer of analogue synthesizers, and our whole industry owes him a debt of gratitude for his innovations,” said Uli Behringer. “When we learned that Tom was still interested in making his own products with his original name, we knew the right thing to do was to transfer all of our Oberheim registrations back to him.”
Sounds lovely! Uli is so kind, relinquishing such valuable IP is truly a blessing.
Earlier this year, the “Behringer Oberheim” name was rejected. According to USPTO documents, the request was rejected as it may have “falsely suggest a connection with Tom Oberheim”. In 2019, Music Tribe succeeded in removing trademark protection for the Oberheim name for music hardware in the European Union.
oh.
I’m talking strictly about the definition of clone rather than the effect of cloning.
Doesn’t have to be a clone to infringe on IP. Knockoff or likeness is good enough to incur a lawsuit.
Of course, this rich weirdo libertarian millionaire is a bad person with questionable ethics and practices. He’s like the Peter Thiel of synths. His fanboys are annoying and often sexist guys looking for a father. But ripping the company is just a waste of time that lets people pat themselves on the back while accomplishing or drawing attention to nothing that would take on the laws that enable it, sneer at people with with less money, and talk up expensive gear
Does this happen though? I’ve not seen it personally.
I’m all for getting affordable synths in the hands of those that can’t afford the entry fee. Companies like Cre8audio do a great job of this, and even Behringer have some unique designs that also accomplish it. You don’t need to copy innovative designs from well respected companies to achieve that. That’s opportunistic capitalism, not charity work.
As others have said there’s a difference between creating a reproduction of an 808 and cloning a Subharmonicon (please don’t sue me Uli).
I mean…
