Electro Harmonix wins copyright piracy case against Mooer
Software piracy case announcement
Electro-Harmonix has been awarded a “nearly six-figure” sum against pedal manufacturer Mooer in a Chinese court. The reason: copyright infringement on the software contained in EHX’s C9 Organ Machine and Micro POG pedals.
Chinese Copies
Back in 2016, our sister site gearnews.de reported that EHX had gone to court to stop the sale of two Mooer pedals, the Mooergan and Tender Octaver. At the time, Mooer’s German distributor, Warwick, confirmed to us that sales had been stopped.
Now we have the latest – and possibly final – chapter in this sad story. Mooer has evidently landed themselves a hefty bill for copying Mike Matthew‘s work. The Electro Harmonix property in question was software driving its C9 Organ Machine and Micro POG pedals. According to the press release, the Mooer pedals used exact copies of the software including, amazingly, the original EHX copyright notice!
EHX President, Mike Matthews, stated:
Electro-Harmonix has successfully won battles with labour racketeers in the U.S.A. and ruthless mobsters in Russia. After almost two years of fighting, the Chinese courts have awarded Electro-Harmonix a nearly six-figure judgement. Our victory is now complete and these pirates have walked the plank!
NAMM 2019
Since both companies will be at NAMM 2019 there could be a few embarrassed looks from the staff running the Mooer booth this year, as I am sure there will be lots of questions for them to answer. Just goes to show that in the global market place it’s becoming more difficult to pirate software in this way without getting found out. Suddenly everyone can tell where your ‘inspiration’ came from…
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2 responses to “Electro Harmonix wins copyright piracy case against Mooer”
Good going fuck pirates and. Red dog love your bass pedal keep up the goof work
A “near 6 digit sum” is a 5 digit sum and let´s hope that is in USD and not ¥. I´m not so sure whether this is a tough punishment by the Chinese court for a Chinese company or just a friendly FU to EH.