Buying amps, profiling, returning. Frowned upon????

I had a well known/well respected international guitarist suggest this exact thing to me. I haven't given it much thought but I could see arguments pro and con. It is not illegal but it could be considered not-so moral. It is not the same as illegal internet downloads of music although some amp manufacturers might disagree. I am surprised that some of the amp makers haven't cried foul over the current stockpile of profiles. I would recommend stocking up just in case!

Let's be honest - amp makers aren't worried about losing sales to Kemper owners, and the amount of people that switch from amps to KPA aren't anywhere near enough to make them worried about it.

How about if you owned the store selling the amps? If the amp is returned (of course the box is opened), by law (in the US at least) you can't sell it again as new....so now you have to take a loss because some piker wanted to profile it?

This is how you roll....Seriously?

This question has been bugging me a little too. I was in serach of my ultimate amp and undeceided whether to buy a Cornford, Mesa MkV or Two Rock when I came across the Kemper. I bought the Kemper instead beacuse I felt I could effectively have all 3 for less than the price of one of them, and would have a more convenient home recording set up as well. This was based on the belief that the Kemper is good enough to make an exact copy. So yes well done CK for being the first to achieve this convincingly, but the important point is that I bought the Kemper because of the guitar tone and brand name value created by others. I bought it in the belief that it can create an exact 'copy' of an amp signal path, in the same way that the first tape recorders gave us the ability to make an acceptable copy an LP for the first time - which hit LP sale very hard. Having owned the Kemper for a few months now I still feel it is fully capturing the amps (I only use paid for And44 profiles) and in my mind I am playing the real amps rather than the Kemper. You can not hold back progress, so I guess the amp manufaturers need to get on board by selling official profiles of thier amps and pressing CK to introduce some form of copy protection to prevent them being passed around for free (which might work as they can only be played on a Kemper)

KPA is the greatest thing i've bought since i've started playing guitar.But i still like playing my superchamp xd tube amp or my blackheart little giant head sometimes.It's not better but still a special treat for the audiophile guitarist to play a tube amp in his room sometimes....because of those 10"/12" speakers and that dynamic/reflexive response they generally have to power tubes.

So....how about if in the future ,the amp dealers and manufacturers would offer online free trial profiles of their amps?Because i think there will still be a market for tube amps,low watt especially, even when everybody will have KPA's or KPA like processors and the profile formats will be standardized.

To be honest I'd rather buy a so called commercial pack.
You won't hurt sellers, you pay more or less what you'd pay for a two way shipping and get several amp profiles instead of just one.

Here is my take on this.
At first, I thought that Amp sales and indeed OD/Distortion stomps sales would drop drastically because the kemper can capture them so well, - but JeffTD summed it up, realistically, and in some way it serves good for a profile to be made as it serves as a demo of that amp across the nation that guitar players wont get access to normally. - its like your demoing an amp in your living-room with you underpants on rather than playing at a store, where you cant really use its full potential. - there is still a large degree of difference between an amp in the room and the kemper, not tonally, but subjectively so, that having a real backline is still common, and this will still warrant the sales of real amps.

Ive been negotiating with amp manufactures for a while, and never heard any of them to be worried, as they are all positive. (most) - Working with Lazy J amps currently, and they are for it more so than any other amp manufacture to date, more so they want to get involved including write ups and publicity for it,

Only thing that ever worried me, is Im flying the amp brands on my website for commercial reasons, and Im still not sure if I need to change all the names, or if this is still 100% legal or not.. - any solicitors here care to comment on that?

Well, probably you should change the names of the amps and describe form which amp they are based on, underlining that the trademarks are of the respective owners and they are not affiliated to them.

Quote from and44

Only thing that ever worried me, is Im flying the amp brands on my website for commercial reasons, and Im still not sure if I need to change all the names, or if this is still 100% legal or not.. - any solicitors here care to comment on that?

Just open a Line 6 manual, and use their phrasing - they have certainely taken a lot of legal advice before publishing their stuff. Example, from the "Variax acoustic manual" page 22 :

---------------------------------------------------------
GYPSY

based on 1933 Selmer(r) Maccaferri
Rosewood back and sides, ebony fingerboard, 648mm scale.

Italian guitarist and luthier Mario Maccaferri designed his best known instrument during his short association with Selmer(r), a French manufacturer. The distinctive cutting tone of these unique bent-top guitars was used to great effect by legendary gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt. We've modeled the first "D-Hole" version, without the controversial internal resonator.

[[picture of the guitar]]

Selmer is a registered trademark of Conn-Selmer, Inc, and is in no way associated or affiliated with Line 6. The product name, description and image are provided for the sole purpose of identifying the specific products that were studied during Line 6's sound model development.

---------------------------------------------------------
So my guess is that you have to chose a non copyrighted name for your own prduct : here "GYPSY" instead of "1933 Selmer(r) Maccaferri", you can freely refer to the name, picture and characteristics of the product you describe, and you have to put the usual disclaimer... And you are probably safe with that...

Best regards.

Jean-Jacques/

Yes, I don't think it's a good idea to use real names for the profiles - and then even sell them.

This could be VERY expensive.

All my profiles/packs have similar but different names.

Andy,
I'd at least have some standard disclaimer on your website and profile documentation which states that all trademarks, copywrite belong to their original owners etc. I'd have a look at what others have done as meow61 says.

Neil

Quote from neil-c

Andy,
I'd at least have some standard disclaimer on your website and profile documentation which states that all trademarks, copywrite belong to their original owners etc. I'd have a look at what others have done as meow61 says.

Neil

Yep, I believe this is all you need to do.

I am thinking that amp manufacturers might approach it this way , they buy a kemper profile thier own amps and do it really well ,then sell those profiles .

Quote from Will_Chen

Yep, I believe this is all you need to do.

You can't name a profile (not even a synth patch) like the brand name and sell them.

The amps in the Line6 Vetta were named like the real ones in the first version - and were renamed very fast

Quote from JHERCULEES1

I am thinking that amp manufacturers might approach it this way , they buy a kemper profile thier own amps and do it really well ,then sell those profiles .

Or, even better, profile theirs amps, copy the Kemper in standard 2U rack, and sell the rack

To answer the original question:

Yes, I think it would be frowned on and be considered an abuse of the seller's intended use of their return policy. Two things WILL occur if it gets bad enough....prices will go up for everyone and return policies will include restocking fees.

I have just bought a kemper and a Hughes & Ketner switchblade 100 combo to work together as a total package as the switchblade has a full midi floor board that you can use to switch the KPA and by running the KPA into the amp loop and running the guitar straight into the KPA then you have the ultimate rig. So as I see it KPA's will not reduce amp sales they will only enhance the way we use our amps at home on stage and in the studio. The KPA is the gel that can bind a lot of gear together to work in a more dynamic way.