Dear Mr. John Garrett,

The question comes to mind after reading your complaint. Sometimes I see a product on market. I am interesting on how the product works, and so I bought the product. (As far as I remember, I have done this on two products).

I studied the circuit, drawing the circuit's schematic (if they're only single or dual layer), searched for the component's datasheets, figured out how it works, and then re-design it using available component if necessary.

The hardest part of this 'piracy' action is the microcontroller's software. Most of them are bit protected, so by reading the datasheet and timing diagram of the component, I wrote my OWN code. And the result is almost the same as the original (I even add more feature on one product).

The difference from original product is, I'm not promoting my products massively to public, only selling them at my friend's store, and off course they're cheaper.

In my country (Indonesia), piracy hasn't been taken seriously by the government, and I haven't read the US's law on piracy, so at least I myself consider what i've done is legal. However, if you or this forum consider it as illegal, I'll do my best to avoid it.

so, Am I a pirate?

Best regard,
Muhammad Fauzan