(A mirror of the response posted on overunity.com)
First I would like to say hello to the members of this community.
Teslatronix, has been quite busy lately and has had little time to deal with keeping up with correspondences and protecting his image / reputation.
The Kickstarter project pointed out in this thread has taken up a lot of time and he has been busy organizing a team of people to help, along with sourcing the components, and planning all the necessary logistics. I will elaborate more on that later, for now there are some matters to address:
Kaulder / Kultus / DesertExperimenter,
First, your posts on this forum thread violate the forum registration agreement:
You agree, through your use of this forum, that you will not post any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person’s privacy, adult material, or otherwise in violation of any International or United States Federal law.
The video you have produced and published on YouTube, in which you identify Teslatronix and advocate redistribution of your defamatory statements, constitutes criminal defamation in all states of Australia via the Uniform Defamation Law. The criteria for proving criminal defamation are explicitly expressed numerous times in your published video.
Disagreeing with someone who is acting within the law, on what constitutes fair business practices, does not give you the right to harass and defame them, and there are very well defined legal standards for resolving this type of behavior and awarding monetary damages, even from those who are merely redistributing your video.
Consider this a warning. If you do not take down the video, you are opening yourself up for legal action.
To the other members of this community:
We understand that several members of this community are concerned about the use of a specific circuit, which is freely available from numerous sources online, many of which do not have adequate accreditation.
First, please understand that when freely publishing information, there is no legal recourse for enforcing how that information is used, redistributed in other forms, or modified. One cannot simply draw something, publish it online, and say it’s not for commercial use.
If you wish to protect your intellectual property, specifically designs, a patent is necessary. However, patents do not give your idea ultimate protection. Patents afford inventors limited protection for a specific period of time, and are meant for advancing the state of the art; after the given period of protection has expired anyone may use the designs in any commercial or non-commercial manner they choose.
Even during the period of protection, individuals or businesses may build the protected device for experimental purposes. This exists to encourage the advancement of the state of the art, as patents that do not accurately express the method of operation may be challenged, and those who are able to significantly improve the device may re-patent it in their own name.
If you truly want to protect your work, you must keep it secret; the downside is if someone else publishes the same idea you then don’t even get credit for the idea.
It seems that the majority of members here understand this, and that all design is in some way derived from other designs in whole or part.
Others here think it is unfair to sell something that is freely available online, Teslatronix has himself on numerous occasions expressed that the information on this technology is freely available, and has made the information of what he was experimenting with available to the public. His goal is to inform, educate, and provide hobbyists and experimenters with kits and completed experimental devices to be used in their own experiments.
With respect to the Kickstarter, people are not forced to buy schematics, it exists merely as a low level donation reward for those who want to help the project, and get something physical they can hold onto and look at. It is no different those who have decided to pledge $1 to help the project without any expectations of anything physical in return.
For clarification:
1. The final circuit diagrams and information that will be delivered for backer rewards, while in some ways may be derived from others work, are significantly different modifications, or entirely different from those in question.
2. The diagrams, and information are of original author and are not authored by anyone other than Teslatronix; they do not violate any copyrights.
For example: If you draw a cat, and write a book on cats, the work is copy written to you. This does not mean however that someone else can’t draw a picture of a cat (whether the same or different) or write a book on cats in different verbiage. Copyright does not protect the subject matter of drawing or book; only the actual end product.
3. Much more than just a basic oscillator circuit drawing is being delivered at the $15 donation level. Complete written instructions with illustrations, photographs, as well as downloadable content will be provided for how to build complete Tesla coils, and numerous related devices and accessories, as well as basic circuit theory, how to solder and other information so as to be a complete educational package for beginners.
Information on how to cook is freely available virtually everywhere. Does this mean that everyone will be able to easily find the recipes, gather quality ingredients, and follow the directions they find, and wind up with a meal that is of the quality of a professional chef?
Does this mean that no one should be allowed to collect, organize, and present information how to cook in a very easy to follow way for those who are not savvy enough to create their own recipes?
4. The same information in its most basic form will be available for free to the public, for those who actually have the skill and understanding to interpret and follow circuit drawings and technical language without being educated on it first.
If you think you can produce kits cheaper than us, by all means do so, but I can assure you that there is virtually no profit margin on these, and if you had to pay someone else hourly to merely produce these kits, you would lose money outright.
When you look at the cost of a kit to build a Tesla coil, keep in mind 10% of that money right off the bat goes to Kickstarter as their fee. Also shipping costs, and packing materials are factored into that price. Go ahead and price boxes, tape, bubble wrap, and plastic zip bags.
Now go ahead and source the components. The spools of magnet wire provided alone cost $10. Now factor in that an individual would be buying small quantities and paying significant shipping on each item order, from numerous vendors.
Many people have done the math themselves, for $50 people get almost everything they need to make a Tesla coil, and this is why so many people have backed the kits, because they realize it is absolutely worth them paying $50 to not have to spend all the time, and in a lot of cases its actually cheaper than they could buy the materials, not factoring in the time they would spend.
While Teslatronix is not a member of this forum, it does not mean that he should be harassed and defamed for what he is trying to do.
Teslatronix has a background in electronics, and created a YouTube channel in order to show people the things he was experimenting on.
He wants to create a website, forum, and ultimately a community of online experimenters and researchers to promote energy independence, alternative power sources, and general science; as well as procuring additional tools, hardware, and materials to continue and advance his own research.
Tools and materials are expensive these days, initially it was recommended to Teslatronix to create a Kickstarter for Tesla coils to see if there was any interest in this subject matter. The initial goal was fairly low, and he never expected to make any significant profit.
His goal was simply to be able to have the funds to purchase some materials in bulk, distribute the information and kits to the public, while maybe making a little $ or breaking even with some extra materials left over to put towards other projects, web hosting, and some equipment. The low pledge request and limited number of backer rewards is viewable by all.
He never expected the level of support that has come about.
What started as a project that could have been easily completed by one person part time, has turned into something that has the potential to create something significant.
Everything has been very busy here and while things may seem incomplete or disjointed, that is soon to change. In a very short time a core team has been assembled to fulfill all aspects of the Kickstarter project with the upmost quality and professionalism.
Whether it be project management, research & design, fabrication, packaging & shipping, media production and web design, or Legal we have all aspects covered, and some big things are on their way.
Now that the project has become successful, a handful of people have come out of the woodwork, thinking they are entitled to money or equipment, or telling us we should either fix our prices, cap our sales, or otherwise limit our project in some way.
These people think they are entitled to money and equipment from us without being part of the project or doing any of the work. When they were encouraged to start their own Kickstarter projects, they launched a massive smear campaign rather than collaborate or cross promote each other’s work.
We encourage anyone who wants to do a similar project to go ahead, competition and collaboration in parallel lines of research is what we are all about. It is a shame that a few individuals have decided to devote so much of their time to trying to destroy someone else rather than create a project of their own.
For those of you who think that Teslatronix is somehow taking all the money out of the market, two months ago there was a Tesla coil Kickstarter project that generated $160,000. Teslatroix’s Kickstarter is a fraction of that, and is not stopping any of you from starting your own project.
If you want to start your own Kickstarter we’d even be happy to give you some advice and cross promote your work. If it’s something we find worthwhile we may even back it! There are billions of people in the world, the 200 some people backing Teslatronix Kickstarter are not going to keep you from making your own successful project. Working together to promote the technology and cross promote our work is only going to draw in more backers for everyone, imagine if any of these ideas went mainstream.
If you’re not willing to do the work required to make something successful, and have had ample time in the past to try to do so, why try to stop someone else from doing the same?
These people have now continued by recruiting others who are uninformed of the situation, to continue to defame Teslatronix & the Kickstarter project.
Teslatronix is not trying to hide anything by disabling video comments on YouTube.
I’m betting if you had a YouTube channel and woke up to dozens of vulgar defamatory comments by a very small group of people who kept making additional YouTube accounts in order to post additional comments you would disable them too, rather than waste your time spending all day moderating comments when you actually have real work to do.
I hope this has clarified things, and we encourage you to visit our YouTube channel.
http://www.youtube.com/teslatronix1
