Originally Posted by
chainstrainer
Your pudding has made my point. Those bikes are new designs from Sander's design company.
Creative people are the one's driving progress. The counterfeiters are, by their nature, incapable of original thought and could simply care less.
The fake Strida is advertised as
"STRDA" and uses Strida photos and ads produced by Ming Cycles, edited to remove "strida.com" references. Even Merc doesn't copy every detail of a Brompton. I have read reviews from others familiar with both models (I'm not) and there apparently are some distinguishing features beyond the frame design. They don't market it as a "BROMTON" and I'd hope they use their own photos and ads.
Something is patently unfair here, pun intended.
Are we talking about fairness or are we talking about progress?
If your only point is that creative people are the ones driving progress then you have no basis for arguing that the counterfeiting competition is hindering progress in any way. On the contrary, just as the creative people are the ones driving progress, the counterfeiting competition are the ones driving the creative people.
Is it unfair? Perhaps, but it really doesn't matter because I doubt any legislature in the world is powerful enough to contradict Adam Smith's invisible hand and the near infinite supply which is inherent to all kinds of information. Is Mark Sanders ceasing to be creative because he is being treated unfairly? No, because profit, not fairness, is what drives the market; And if Mark Sanders has enough profit motive to continue creating is he really being treated unfairly?
You can make any point you want, but the fact of the matter is that we see progress happening before our very eyes: Consumer prices dropping on the award winning Strida design and innovative new improvements from the award winning Strida designer. I can't say the same about the situation at the Brompton company, who, according to you, has apparently had fewer "unfair" crimes against them. So which should take precedence, progress or your personal sense of "fairness"?
Originally Posted by
mulleady
Your views are your views and to call people who differ from your opinion 'fools' shows your arrogance and your ignorance. So it's fine for the Chinese to keep copying is it? At least the Taiwanese make original contributions to the innovation of bikes. These guys can't even use original photos. The copy of the Strida is so directly obvious, its unoriginal and no doubt inferior. This isn't quite the same situation as the Merc. If you call this type of copying 'progress' then maybe you are the fool?
I'm not calling people who differ from my views fools. I'm calling people who allow themselves to become victims of economically inevitable IP "theft" fools. Any business plan which depends on the government to outmuscle the laws of supply and demand is a recipe for failure.
I don't think Mark Sanders is a fool and I'd be very surprised if his views didn't differ from mine. On the contrary, I think he is a very intelligent man as he clearly knows how to protect himself from market realities, both just and unjust.