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Analog Man’s Mike Piera posts photos of smashed King Of Tone copy as a warning to counterfeit pedal manufactures
Maybe just stick to the four-year waiting list.
Image: Mike Piera via Instagram
UPDATE (3 November 2021): Guitar.com reached out to Piera, who gave us some extra information about the origins of the photo and the cloned pedal. See the updated article below. Additionally, the original headline of this article incorrectly stated that the pedal in the photograph had been destroyed by US customs – this has been corrected. The pedal was destroyed by a customer, however, Analog Man has now given its information to the US Customs and Border Protection e-Recordation Program, meaning infringing pedals will be seized upon entry.
Analog Man’s Mike Piera has shared some images on social media of a destroyed copy of his King Of Tone overdrive pedal, stating that a similar fate awaits other clones that try to enter the US.
Taking to Instagram, Piera captioned a series of photos: “US customs will now be doing this to the fake pedals coming in from China, sorry dude. #analogman #counterfeit.” In order, the photos showed the Instagram account of 68 Pedals, a Chinese pedal company, and two photos that showed a pedal enclosure – one that looks pretty similar to that of an Analog Man King Of Tone – being progressively destroyed by a customer. These photos look to be from screenshots of Instagram’s direct message feature, presumably being sent to 68 Pedals.
68 Pedals has made it no secret that it creates a clone of the King Of Tone, as you can see in the below Instagram post.
However, a pedal exactly like the above “King Of Clone” would likely not meet the same grisly fate as the one Piera showed being destroyed. When asked to clarify by a commenter if “all of” the cloned pedals would be destroyed, Piera clarified: “Anything with our trademark on it.”
Analog Man
Analog Man LLC currently owns the wordmark ANALOG.MAN. The circuits of arriving pedals are not what is infringing about these clones – in most cases, it is difficult to patent or trademark a circuit as simple as a guitar pedal, hence the thriving market for clones and sound-alikes. Instead, it is the enclosures that copy the Analog Man King Of Tone’s branding and design that are considered counterfeit.
In response to Piera’s post, some commentators did note they had experience with pedal builders who advertised a bowdlerised version of their clones for their retailer listings, but would post out pedals with infringing artwork.
Guitar.com reached out to Piera to ascertain whether or not this was the case for the destroyed pedal in question. He confirmed: “The ad [for the cloned pedal] did not show our trademarks but when he got the pedal, it did have them.
“So he contacted me to make sure it was fake and then said he would destroy it because he didn’t feel right, and put it in another generic case.”