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> To be clear, when we talk about “hand-assembled” on Etsy, we don’t mean simply putting together a kit where all the pieces are already chosen and provided together. For example, if someone bought a flat-packed bookcase from IKEA that came with all the pieces pre-cut and all the necessary hardware included, and then put it together as directed by the enclosed instructions, that assembled bookcase would not qualify to be sold on Etsy as a handmade item. “Hand-assembled” on Etsy also does not include gathering commercially-produced items and repackaging them in a gift basket.

I'm not sure where I fall on this. Isn't the description above exactly what he is doing? He's assembling an object based on someone else's design, from commercially available parts. The cases are made from laser cut parts, so that's not exactly hand made. I gather that he's using the laser cutter to draw all the labels on the case, they're not custom painted designs.

He's put some design into it (and quite a bit of his time), but I'm not sure Etsy is wrong. He's basically made a kit out of someone else's project and is assembling it for the end user. He's nearly into manufacturing.

When I think of Etsy, I think of the crochet patterns or stuffed animals I've seen. If he had designed the device I'd give him more weight, but I'm still not sure he's in Etsy's market.

I also think its fair of Etsy to ask for build photos in case of a question like this. I would say his photos provide the necessary proof (either way). I'm not sure additional photos of him soldering DIPs to the board would actually add anything.

You do make a very valid argument here and while he is definitely assembling already created components, I think by Etsy's own definition of "hand assembled" he is within the rules of the site.

"To be considered handmade, the seller must substantially alter the design of an item produced from a "ready to assemble" kit."

The author isn't buying any ready to assemble kit as far as I know. He's sourced the components and even if the components were in a ready to assemble kit, you could argue the laser cutting of the enclosure is by Etsy's definition a substantially altered version of the kit. But from what I can gather he's not buying the parts in any kit, he's merely purchased a pre-fabricated PCB and putting it into a custom enclosure which is far from a ready to assemble kit (at least for the average consumer) as there is still quite a bit of manual labour involved. Soldering requires skill, knowledge of the correct solder to use and even the correct tip and temperature settings for particular solders. I've seen first hand people overheating and ruining components because they thought they could resolder a wire back onto a circuit board or even replace pick ups in their guitar.

There are people who sell custom guitar stomp boxes and effects like this guy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/GnarHeelPedals — I doubt the boards and chips are being hand made, they're hand wired which is merely another way of saying hand assembled. To me it's the same thing.

It'll be interesting to see how Etsy approaches this and what happens next. I can see why some people are more sceptical than others and realise interpretation of terms like "hand made" and "hand assembled" mean different things to different people.

As a musician when I purchase a synthesizer, I am buying the circuit. The enclosure/build quality/etc is secondary, though obviously an important consideration.

If someone tells me I am buying a "handmade synthesizer" in addition to it being largely assembled by hand I would assume it contains a novel circuit design (as in, not an exact copy of someone else's design) unless I was explicitly told otherwise. In this case I would consider it to be "from a kit" in that he's taken a freely available plan and done the equivalent of assembling a kit for it.

Between the fact that the design is not novel, and the fact that it's not clear precisely how much of the actual assembly he is doing I think it's fair for Etsy to raise the issue.

I think you might be misunderstanding what the issue is. It's not that he's charging too much for his services or something - the amount of work he puts into it is irrelevant. I could spend quite a lot of time tracking down obscure/rare records from the past 10 years; travelling the country, digging in record shops, etc. That doesn't mean it would be appropriate to sell them on Etsy - it's not Ebay.

Personally I'm ok with such things being on Etsy. As long as it's labelled as an assembled kit or from someone else's design. I would even consider purchasing it. I don't think it's quite clear cut though and I think Etsy should be allowed leeway in deciding what they think is appropriate for their marketplace.

> As a musician when I purchase a synthesizer, I am buying the circuit. The enclosure/build quality/etc is secondary, though obviously an important consideration.

As both a musician and synth designer, I've always put the sound and user interface above all else. If you ever get the chance to play around with an amateur reproduction of a classic circuit you'll know that factors other than the circuit diagram contribute heavily to the final sound.

> If someone tells me I am buying a "handmade synthesizer" in addition to it being largely assembled by hand I would assume it contains a novel circuit design (as in, not an exact copy of someone else's design) unless I was explicitly told otherwise.

This is an unfair assumption. Unless you're buying "handmade" synth modules direct from Ken Stone, Dave Smith, Bob Moog, or one of maybe a baker's dozen others, you're buying an outright copy or hack of multiple circuits. Maybe I'd feel kinda ripped off if Dave Smith sold me a "handmade" AX-60 clone (not his design after all)... or, no wait, that would be a dream come true.

The level of originality being demanded here is unreasonable. Imagine describing to a lay-person how a new library fit like a glove and saved you a couple thousand lines of code, only to have that person balk at your unoriginal, potentially dishonest work. That's what this thread reads like.

> As both a musician and synth designer, I've always put the sound and user interface above all else.

You're talking about something slightly different: you're talking about what you use to evaluate the quality of a thing. I'm talking about what is the thing that you are purchasing. There is some overlap clearly; when you buy a synth you want a good one...but what it ultimately comes down to is you are purchasing the circuit.

The point is that in contrast to something like a lamp -with things like synthesizers the actual implementation is important and is in fact what you are purchasing -you are purchasing an analog synth of such and such type. Whereas with a lamp after a certain base level of functionality, you're purchasing entirely based on appearance.

> The level of originality being demanded here is unreasonable

I think you are similarly misunderstanding the issue. I think what the guy in the OP is trying to do in terms of a business is perfectly fine (with the condition that they are open about the fact that they are using someone else's design).

I also think that Etsy is trying to build a certain kind of marketplace...one for artists or crafts people. I think it's fair to question whether this counts as that.

If you're just taking a schematic from somewhere then paying someone to print the board, have them mount the components listed in the schematic, have them solder them, etc....which you then take and stick into an enclosure and wire the up... I just don't think that qualifies. I think you have a perfect right to sell that to people (heck, I'd buy it), I'm just not sure if it belongs on Etsy.

The problem is there's a lot of things to consider. How was he describing his products, was it accurate? How much of the assembling was he doing? Did he have any input into the design?

If on the other hand, he was doing the majority of the assembly, modifying the design, and/or he was using some creativity in sourcing parts (say, tracking down vintage diodes or something)...then I think it does qualify and should be allowed on Etsy.

> Imagine describing to a lay-person how a new library fit like a glove and saved you a couple thousand lines of code, only to have that person balk at your unoriginal, potentially dishonest work.

Right, this is a good analogy and I think you should think about it more. Just like the issue at hand, your analogy has a lot of nuance and things that must be considered.

What exactly was I hired for. If I was hired to write a program to compress a folder of images, sure it makes sense to just throw zlib or something in there and call it a day. That's fine. What though if I bill it as if I had written my own lib? What if I was hired to write a new compression library? Clearly in that case it's not ok to just give them zlib and charge for the work. What if I add a nice wrapper around it though, which adds utility...then it might become ok again since I am adding value. What if I translate zlib to another (programming) language then bill them? That might be ok in some situations, and others not.

It all depends.

What it comes down to is I think it's totally fair for Etsy to question it. It's enough in the "gray area" for me. It also seems the guy has not yet provided enough information to push it out of the "gray area".

I'd like to see stuff like this sold on Etsy, but it depends on the specifics.

> As a musician when I purchase a synthesizer, I am buying the circuit. The enclosure/build quality/etc is secondary, though obviously an important consideration.

The enclosure may be of secondary importance to you as a musician, but from a "hand making" point of view, when I buy a synth, I'm buying many hours of work that went into making a solid, good-looking case around the circuit, applying filters and responsive knobs and patches and all sort of inputs and outputs and maybe a keyboard and other kind of controllers.

If we justify that Etsy is entitled to not consider handcraft a hand made synth because the main source of sound may not have been engineered by the seller, tomorrow they can as well ask any seller of knitted wool sweaters to provide pictures of them shearing those sheep whose wool has been used because users say:

"As a wool sweaters aficionado when I buy a sweater, I am buying the wool"

"I could spend quite a lot of time tracking down obscure/rare records from the past 10 years; travelling the country, digging in record shops, etc. That doesn't mean it would be appropriate to sell them on Etsy - it's not Ebay"

Vintage fashion is a big seller on Etsy, so your analogy would actually be appropriate.

This Brendan guy just needs to switch to selling "handmade" monogrammed island clutches:

http://www.etsy.com/search?q=monogram%20island%20clutch%20bl...

(EDIT: Project idea for someone who's bored: Scrape images off Etsy, group items based on image similarity, and find obvious mass-produced items. Actually, nevermind, Etsy should be paying someone to do that for them if they actually care about the "handmade" line they're spouting.)

Project idea for someone who's bored: Scrape images off Etsy, group items based on image similarity, and find obvious mass-produced items.

Actually because an item looks alike does not mean they are not handmade. Many people on Etsy follow instructions. Etsy's 'handmade' actually means more 'self-made'. A lot of mass produced item are made by hand in Asia. Opposite of our home in Thailand there is a small shoe factory in some families home. They make shoes up to spec for some big companies. So, Etsy requires that all items are made by the person that lists the item for sell. However, it does not require an original idea.

I'm having a hard time believing these sellers ever even touch these items.

Given the cost of an embroidery machine that can actually embroider these items, and the fact that nobody seems to have non-stock photographs of any the items, and the fact that ~90% of the images showing available fonts are completely identical, I'm guessing they're having a third party do the work and either drop-ship the item directly to customers or ship it to the Etsy seller, who then re-ships it to the customer.