Copyright concerns hit Kickstarter campaign for wood turntable
Raise your hand if you remember the Kickstarter campaign for Silvan Audio Workshop's wood turntable. It's a sleek, ornamental design featuring a slab of wood, a glass platter, supporting spikes and high-end parts from UK audio manufacturer Rega. It struck a chord with some of our readers yesterday, and especially with Joel Scilley, a longtime turntable and audio gear manufacturer operating under the name Audiowood. He's been selling "Barky," a turntable just like Silvan Audio Workshop's, since 2009. Scilley claims that the Kickstarter design infringes on his copyright, and he's asked the campaign's owner, Kent Walter, to halt all crowdfunding. He's also filed a DMCA notice with Kickstarter, so far to no avail.
Scilley's issue with the Silvan Audio Workshop campaign isn't its use of Rega parts or slabs of wood -- it's all about the design similarities.
"The Silvan Audio turntable is identical to my design in every way but two: a change of wood types (which I too have done), and a different brand of spike feet (which, importantly, from a visual design perspective, are still spikes)," Scilley says. "The parts kit is the same, including the glass platter which allows tree rings to be seen, and the overall concept is identical."
