Reply To: Evolution Series Fresh Spring Deals

[peter]

Behind the scenes developer story (so anyone uninterested can stop there). I was a superfan of Orange Tree Samples libraries when I approached Greg maybe 15 or so years ago after finding his guitar libraries were at a level that surpassed every other guitar sample library on the market. I shot him my bio so that he knew my background and would take me seriously and proposed that he was the perfect developer to create an idea I had for a guitar sample library that did just about everything a real guitar could do. I even threw some names at him, and told him my favorite name was Evolution, because it was an Evolution from what existed in the marketplace. My recommendation was that it should be a sub-brand, a line of products, that he should consider renaming his company Evolution Samples. I urged him to buy the related domain and urged him to register the trademark in the primary markets where he planned to market the product. And he did that.

I ended up talking to a bunch of other developers of guitar libraries over the years, and a bunch of them, like Andrew Aversa, Impact Soundworks, had shared with me that the Evolution guitar line inspired him to create his own guitar line, which he described to me as a less sophisticated system inspired by Evolution that was genre focused. The developer behind Electricity from Big Fish Audio told me that his libraries were merely Evolution “reverse engineered.” Just about every developer I’d known who did guitar libraries took note of Greg and described him as brilliant, and leading the way for guitar sample libraries. So, several months after the launch of the first Evolution guitar sample library, this brand new developer starts running promotions for his new company and line, Evolution Series. I contact the guy and tell him that his infringing on an existing trademark in his industry. He tells me that it doesn’t matter, he already bought the domain and had thought of the idea a long time before Orange Tree Samples’ launched their Evolution line. In other words, he has no intention of doing the legal and right thing.

Consequently, I do get annoyed every time I see this guy’s trademark infringing line and now everyone here knows why. He appears to be a talented developer. But ethically? Not a fan.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

2