Like all stories revolving around the Streisand Effect, it essentially begins harmlessly enough: with a video from British YouTuber and full-time electronics engineer Mark Maher, aka “Mend It Mark”, in which he Shows “Mastergroove SR Mk III”. The audio was repaired by Welsh producer Tom Evans’ humming “phono preamplifier”. The only thing worth noting is that the device, which cost about 25,000 British pounds (about 30,280 euros), arrived at Maher in a similar poor condition with damage during transportation and the original manufacturer previously refused to repair it under guarantee. Had refused.
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Mark Maher gets to work, but encounters a problem: there are no circuit diagrams available, and the manufacturer has edited out the type designations of various components. This is not entirely unusual, as it is particularly difficult and expensive for small manufacturers to patent circuits; Copycats can be a threat to your existence. Even in devices from large suppliers you can often find unfamiliar components or components molded in completely opaque plastic. But Maher didn’t let this discourage him and used reverse engineering to create a document with circuit diagrams of individual components, which can be seen briefly several times in the video. In this way he is successful in finding the error and removing it.
alleged copyright infringement
So far, very unsurprising – there are a lot of repair videos like this on YouTube, many of which get very little attention. However, to Maher’s surprise, his video received nearly 250,000 views in two and a half weeks – and the creator of “Mastergroove SR MK III” was outraged. Tom Evans reported Maher’s film for alleged copyright infringement, causing YouTube to remove the video. Maher’s immediate problem is the sudden loss of a video on his channel and the resulting loss of income. “The most useful thing I could do in this situation was make a short video explaining why my last video disappeared,” the YouTuber explains.
He published a second video on December 6, 2024 – and caused a storm. Complainant Evans is facing heavy criticism and ridicule from other YouTubers; About a dozen other channels are currently uploading Maher’s original posts. American Louis Rossman, who has been repairing things in front of the camera for years and never minces his words when talking to producers, provides Maher’s video with a brief introduction in which he gives Evans the finger: “What makes you think I’m… “Afraid to mess with you?”
In short: the classic Streisand effect. Tom Evans, by now little known even in high-end circles, is receiving negative publicity, Maher describes as “the side effect is that my channel is growing exponentially.”
conflicting information
Critics say Tom Evans was particularly upset that Maher’s video revealed what was actually behind the £25,000 phono preamplifier. In front of the camera, “Mend It Mark” described slightly smugly what came before his soldering iron: components secured with glue, 16 in all, and circuit boards that were poorly fixed or fragile. were creatively joined together using plastic spacers. All this was more reminiscent of a prototype than a commercial product. The housing of the “MasterGroove SR Mk III” also appears to be relatively simple – Tom Evans Audio apparently uses cardboard strips as a damper between the corner pillars and acrylic panels. In a British forum you can find Pictures of the acrylic glass version of the device – They give the impression of its construction.
When asked, Tom Evans told Heise Online that Maher was ignoring an important point in his presentation. They didn’t block YouTube videos just because Maher reverse-engineered their circuits. Maher also created a file and offered it on his website for a fee. Evans insisted that his lawyers also documented this. Maher denied this representation to Heise Online. The matter does not seem to be resolved legally yet.
Maher offers access to his “community” with tutorials, workshops, circuit diagrams and other content on his website for a year, currently paying just under £250. In the controversial video, Maher finally says: “If you’re interested in how I reverse-engineered it, there’s a workshop about it in the ‘Mark It Like Mark’ community.”
complicated situation
In general, circuit diagrams can hardly be protected by copyright – it would probably only be a legal problem for imitators if they adopted competitors’ technology unchanged in their devices. The manufacturer’s website, which appears for a few moments in Maher’s video and which states that it can only make ten copies of this phono preamplifier per year, is also hardly relevant to copyright.
YouTube defends its approach towards reported copyright violations and references the legal position: “YouTube does not mediate reports of copyright violations – this is the responsibility of the parties involved.” Tom Evans left the question unanswered as to whether he also intends to take legal action against the various uploads of Maher’s videos.
If you can trust the relevant magazines, Evans’ phono preamplifiers really sound excellent. When searching for a product, obnoxious entries now appear in search engines: “a £25,000 embarrassment” or “a £25,000 preamplifier gone astray”.
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