Elektron has announced that it is banning discussion of specific firmware hacks or mods from its official forum, Elektronauts, because of concerns over protecting its intellectual rights and the potential for ‘bricking’ hardware.

In recent months, there has been an explosion of development in the areas of virtual hardware and firmware modes. Examples covered here include Elektron Monomachine Alternate Firmware, an Open-Source Project Brings New Features To Elektron Octatrack, and a New Project That Brings Elektron Monomachine, Machinedrum To Your DAW.

Elektron shared this statement:

“We wanted to contribute to the discussion around hacking that has developed here on Elektronauts and other forums in recent weeks.

Firstly, we very much understand the excitement around exploring firmware and hardware and modding instruments. That spirit of curiosity and experimentation is, after all, a pretty important part of our own early story here at Elektron.

But importantly, as many of you have already mentioned, Elektronauts isn’t the place to be sharing hacks, or facilitating or promoting the modification of firmware on currently supported machines or those from preceding generations. That includes sharing, requesting, or directing people to the files, tools, repositories, or instructions needed to do so. We would always warn against modifications to our firmware and/or machines that could brick them (potentially rendering them unusable), prevent future updates, affect warranty coverage, and in some cases raise concerns around Elektron’s intellectual property. Something that looks like a simple change in isolation can lead to major problems elsewhere, particularly when a later official OS arrives, and can confuse users about which features are officially available on our machines.

For this reason, we’ll be removing topics or comments that we consider to cross that line, including in relation to gear from other manufacturers. The same applies to our official social platforms.

This policy also covers all legacy machines. We also need to protect Elektron’s intellectual property, and therefore do not permit the development or distribution of firmware or hardware that makes unauthorized use of it, for profit or otherwise.

General discussion around the topic is one thing, and not something we seek to inhibit, but we draw the line at distributing actionable material or actively encouraging people to install modifications that could damage their machines.

Curiosity is understandable. Bricked boxes – as we are sure people will understand – less so.

If anything here requires further clarification, please contact our Support team directly.”

This trend is not limited to Elektron. Third party developers have announced projects to create virtual machines for a wide range of synths in recent months, along with alternate firmware for vintage machines from Roland and others.

These hacks and mods can being new life to old hardware, and let vintage digital synth firmware work within modern workflows. But developers have to walk a fine line to ensure that their projects do not infringe on company’s copyrighted code.

How do you think companies like Elektron and Roland should handle this emerging trend?