Originally Posted by
canklecat
The problem with buying Chinese knockoffs is it encourages their manufacturing culture of ripping off other businesses that invested a lot of money into establishing a marque.
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This doesn't just hurt the bottom line of big corporations. It's outright theft from individual artists and graphic designers who see their designs stolen and used by Chinese manufacturers without compensation or legal recourse. I personally know some artists and graphic designers who've been victims of this type of theft.
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But I've avoided Sponeed because it appears they're trying to make a half-assed impression of aping the look of Specialized designs at a quick glance. Well, that... and as dumb as "Specialized" is as a brand name, Sponeed is worse. Sounds like offal from a hide rendering facility. "Honey, go soak in a tub with deodorant, you reek of sponeed."
Sponeed.....
But seriously, it's your point about a designer's or originator's claim that interests me. For team kit, I imagine that what's salient to its identity as such - the arrangement of sponsors' logos on the panels and background colors, etc. - is work-for-hire, not something a designer ever had any independent claim to, and the entity for which the work was done is, in many cases, defunct. It seems most unlikely that the heirs or assigns, if there are any, would have much if any claim. After all, while Acqua & Sapone are still alive and well as a chain of beauty & hygiene stores (aka "drugstores"), they no longer have any meaningful connection to cycling;
the team - the would-be owner of the design - is completely defunct. One might argue that there isn't any entity at all with a meaningful claim to the design of the Acqua & Sapone team kit. It's questionable whether the original manufacturer of the kit has any current claim to the design, especially if the garments were never sold to anyone but the team to begin with, and if it isn't public domain yet, adverse possession, as it were, by assorted knock-off artists will guarantee that it is soon enough.
Originally Posted by
canklecat
Yeah, and there are other examples of alleged infringement that turned out to be very muddled. Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Newman character is an example. Turns out the caricature was probably derived from a 19th century caricature that was long since in the public domain.
But I'm not talking about any gray zone stuff here. The Chinese are directly and unequivocally and undeniably ripping off graphic designs, line for line, dot for dot, color for color.
Yes, this latter is to be scrupulously avoided. But if the copyright-free and (essentially) public domain stuff is all anyone buys from the folks who distribute such stuff, might they be more readily convinced to avoid the counterfeiting?
It's just a cheap, goofy skinsuit, but I wonder if I should ask an attorney....
