zog, the post form gives you buttons that let you create links without having to know the code—you then just type your descriptive text in between the tags: this Hackaday article and archived copies of the original video.
posted by rory at 3:49 AM on December 7 [2 favorites]

Thanks for sharing this! I just discovered Mend It Mark about a month ago. I enjoy his logical/thoughtful diagnosis and repair process, he seems like really nice guy, although his cheerfulness at his work does bring me down a bit [I repair consumer electronics. I'm a little burned out after 30+ years of grinding through repairs, so seeing someone doing the work so joyfully can be a bit much at times] In true Mend It Mark tradition, I feel the need to end this comment with a blink and a slightly awkward heh-heh chuckle.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 4:18 AM on December 7 [9 favorites]

I watched Mark's video about the copyright strike yesterday. The only thing that I can think of that got him in trouble was the creation of his own schematic book of the unit that he was repairing (the video that got taken down). There were no other sources for him to use as a guide, so as zog mentions in the post, he used his own observations and measurements to create a very neatly printed schematic. It was a thing of beauty!

I love Mend It Mark and My Mate Vince, another UK based repairer of broken electronic things and a Rolls Royce.

What I like about both of them is that they are able to treat the subject of their videos like they're a puzzle. It's fun watching them do their magic as they solve those puzzles.

Speaking of UK based Youtubers, I sure do miss Tom Scott.
posted by NoMich at 4:31 AM on December 7 [2 favorites]

One of the charming things about the original video is how he was completely verbally impartial about quite how much of an amateur hour the amp was, just presenting it straight. And in then this response video he quite clearly points at all the places where he thought it was a piece of shit. Like the bit where he piled up the Jenga blocks and threw on all the capacitors.

It's also really nice to hear an accent from the West Midlands on a YouTube channel particularly one from the kind of rural hinterlands of the Black Country. You kind of don't hear much of that accent in broadcast media.
posted by ambrosen at 4:55 AM on December 7 [4 favorites]

I remember when the DMCA was new and people were predicting that it would be easily abused to silence critics, just like this. But what we didn't predict was the rise of automated moderation to go along with it. He can't even get an answer about what part of his video supposedly violated copyright.

(Of course it probably didn't.)

I don't know what else to say except that I hope this channel's high profile will result in this blowing back in the face of the scummy manufacturer. Perhaps some other high-profile channels will pick up on it, because people do love a Streisand effect. That's the only justice available here, as it seems we're long past doing anything to address the law.

This is an effect of corporate capture of the law, just an amusing example of it.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:38 AM on December 7 [5 favorites]

Could the music he played on the phonograph have been used for DMCA?
posted by garisimo at 8:12 AM on December 7 [1 favorite]

Both the channel owner and the manufacturer are in the UK. How does DMCA apply?
posted by Captaintripps at 8:23 AM on December 7 [3 favorites]

4m video, not quite Lock Picking Lawyer short, but nice & efficent! Appears his repair videos have reasonable lengths too. I'll subscribe. :)
posted by jeffburdges at 8:39 AM on December 7 [1 favorite]

the original video passed thru my YT feed a few days ago but I didn't watch as it was kinda long. It fits with a lot of the content I watch. (somewhere in there between Thomas Scott, Colin Furze, G/R Research, Adam Savage, Louis Rossmann)

Capital A Audiophile level stuff can really be off the charts - especially at the 25K+ price point. The price/performance curve gets really hard to justify at a certain point and seeing behind the veil can be quite surprising as far as components used / circuit design or even construction.
posted by djseafood at 8:43 AM on December 7 [2 favorites]

Absolutely loving the complete lack of information in the copyright strike claim. That's some stinky garbage right there.

garisimo > Could the music he played on the phonograph have been used for DMCA?

Most reasonable thing I can think of, however its' worth remembering that a number of audiophile equipment manufacturers have a history of being really unreasonable. Can't comment about this one in particular though.

Captaintripps > Both the channel owner and the manufacturer are in the UK. How does DMCA apply?

Doubt that it actually does, but my best guess is they'll act like it does for the sake of ass covering. Under those circumstances, the course of action taken will come down to what someone there thinks will cause the least headache for Teh Tubes in the future.
posted by Enturbulated at 9:07 AM on December 7

For any non circuit designers who haven’t seen the video: the amplifier is incredibly low quality. It looks like the seller built it with his feet, and was drunk. Poorly drilled holes, bad soldering, mismatched parts, hard to describe how bad the build is. And the actual circuit itself is basically a copy of an application note. There’s nothing clever or ingenious about it: it’s naive. Yet people pay 25K for it.
posted by peter.j.torelli at 9:15 AM on December 7 [4 favorites]

The price/performance curve gets really hard to justify at a certain point and seeing behind the veil can be quite surprising

It's horseshit, especially at the average age of the collectors able to afford it. Even Mike from PS Audio routinely spouts nonsense on his vlogs, which I can detect even with a very basic understanding of electronics and digital audio.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:33 AM on December 7 [1 favorite]

I used to have a fair number audiophile friends for various reasons, most of which I didn't keep in touch with. But at least with them this thing would have been the exact opposite of what they wanted... their stuff while highly questionable in every sense were at least always beautiful. If you are going to pay stupid money for this crap it should at least be a work of art not just some black box.
posted by cirhosis at 9:38 AM on December 7 [2 favorites]

If I understand correctly from the second video, it was the MANUFACTURER who sent it to him for repair, along with a challenge? What on Earth is going on here?
posted by hankmajor at 10:06 AM on December 7 [2 favorites]

Make that Paul from PS Audio. And the nexus to the DMCA is YouTube itself.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:08 AM on December 7 [1 favorite]

"Hm. Has that home-made feel to it."
ouch!
posted by From Bklyn at 11:33 AM on December 7 [1 favorite]

Controversy aside, what a lovely ridealong with a specialist doing his thing with out fuss or pride. His continual heh-hehs almost sound like embarassment at filming and narrating it all, like "what's the big deal?" even though he's obviously extremely good and experienced.
posted by fatbird at 11:41 AM on December 7 [2 favorites]

Both the channel owner and the manufacturer are in the UK. How does DMCA apply?

Because the channel is hosted on Youtube, a platform that's based in the US and is governed by US laws. Content uploaded to Youtube isn't exempted from the DMCA because of who uploaded it or who's making the claim. Youtube has legal obligations regardless, and has designed their copyright moderation around those obligations.

It might become more complicated if you decide to escalate. Then you get into international copyright law, and I don't know exactly how that would play out with both people in the UK.

In fact, copyright trolls based outside of the US have become a big problem on US-based platforms because they can more easily obfuscate their identities and they don't run the same legal risks for filing a knowingly false claim.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 2:27 PM on December 7

There is a very particular kind of schadenfreude related to the takedown of audiophile nonsense (though at least this thing appears to actually be a reasonably quality bit of gear, obscenely inflated price tag notwithstanding).

On review, also what fatbird said. Also I am envious of this man's workshop.
posted by deadbilly at 2:34 PM on December 7 [1 favorite]

But he never explained what the DIP switches were for!

(I suspect they weren't connected)
posted by scruss at 3:03 PM on December 7 [3 favorites]

the DIP switches in my stereo preamp set the gain for each channel
posted by djseafood at 3:13 PM on December 7

I like to use a dip switch when I get bored of the flavor with my crudites.
posted by biogeo at 4:17 PM on December 7

(when I say "reasonably quality", I only refer to the fact that it appears to do the amplification it says it does and the noise seems to be low, otherwise the build quality is crap)
posted by deadbilly at 4:38 PM on December 7

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