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Graham Mitchell

New member
Setting the patent issue aside and just considering the ethical side, I'd vote with my wallet and buy the knockoff. It really isn't my problem as consumer if the original designer cannot protect its intellectual property.
I think that's really harsh. All inventors and designers would LIKE to protect their work and I think they deserve to earn the reward for their effort and contribution. In an ideal world, they could all afford to do it but do you realize how difficult and expensive it can be for a family-size business to get a worldwide patent?

And if they can only afford a local patent, is it right that someone else copies the device outside of that region? Would you be ok with someone selling prints of your photos worldwide in a country where it happened to be legal?

This is a slippery slope and I'm a bit surprised that so many photographers would gladly turn their back on other 'creators'.
 

carstenw

Active member
I echo that sentiment, Graham. As people who create, we are all to some extent hit by this, at least in theory. Anyone can look at the interesting idea behind one of our photos (well, maybe not mine, but the rest of you), and decide to copy it blatantly. To be blind to the frustration and anger this causes, as well as potential legal hassles for direct copies, is to be very blinkered, IMO. Arca-Swiss has designed something which is far more than just a goniometric device here. Rather it is the ingenious combination of several existing ideas, with some own ideas, and it is the entire combination which is unique, and this is what has been blatantly ripped off, as well as some gorgeous industrial design.

If the Korean company had copied just one aspect, that would be understandable, but to copy the entire device with its many facets is immoral and unethical, and probably illegal. I do wish that Arca-Swiss would make the presumed struggle public, to raise awareness of the issue. If the Korean company saw some kind of backlash due to their behaviour, maybe they would cancel the product and stay within reasonable competitive behavioural guidelines.

Personally, I find myself hoping that the copy is of inferior quality and manufactured with sufficiently low tolerance that it becomes useless in practice. This is not inconceivable, given that the design as is presumably relies heavily on exact tolerances throughout the design. I did see someone on another forum who had bought one and complained of sloppy tolerances in some axis.
 

FromJapan

Member
It's not that photographers are turning their backs on other creators. I have had my photos copied off the web. I've had clients (architects!) sell my photos to contractors at a profit. It's simply a fact of life, and we have to deal with it. Ethics and morals are only one facet. Another is simply good business. I now do shared assignments involving all parties. That gets me a much larger fee, and at the same time lowers the cost to each party. Win-win all round, plus no hassles, no legal stuff.

So tell me, how would you deal with someone who copied your photos in a country that doesn't really care too much about such things? For me, if it's worthwhile, I pursue it. If not, send a letter and see where it leads. What else can you, as an individual photographer, do?

Kumar
 

Lars

Active member
Well, it's a fact of business life. Yes I have specifically looked into patenting some of my software inventions. I make software but cannot patent or protect it (in the US) - I don't have the war chest of millions of dollars to defend my patents. The US patent system works for large corporations on the expense of individual investors. It is also strongly biased against foreign inventors - look up Håkan Lans to see how the US courts blatantly ripped off a Swedish inventor and patent holder.

Re my own photos, I only sell prints, not digital files. It's the simplest way for me to protect my work.

But the bottom line is still about money - my money, not AS' money. If there is a 60% discount on a rippoff clone then I will buy the rippoff and thereby send a message to the original manufacturer that its business model is flawed and needs to be revised to stay competitive.

Now, if this was about a starving artist selling paintings I might reconsider, but in this case we are talking about commercial industrial products made for profit.
 
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ddk

Guest
That's not the issue at all with these 'problem' Asian goods. The first issue is the legal issue of patent infringement, the second issue is the moral issue of giving your business to the 'cloners' (even if it's legal) who didn't spend the money on R&D, and finally there are quality and support issues such as durability, fit, smoothness, warranty.
A moral obligation? Wow, Islamic, Christian or Jewish? I hope that you're kidding, how did choosing between 2 competing products suddenly become a moral issue? I'm not condoning copying or ripping anyone's hard work off, but please, lets keep things in perspective here.

Quality and support issues; I have several AS products which are beautifully built and a joy to use which I bought at a premium. I have also have a few parts by other manufacturers which cost a lot less and get the job done just as well but have a different feel, so what. As far as customer support is concerned, my personal experience with AS has been very bad, actually the poorest that I've seen in the specialized market. I have never received a reply to any of e-mails to the company, whether it was for tech support, product inquiries or simply checking on a very overdue order. I hate to think what will happen if I need to service one my AS cameras or heads and need a part for it. I've heard similar complaints from a number of their vendors too, so nothing to gain here, buying AS products for their customer support.

2nd, patent infringement issues are not the business of the consumer, nor within the legal understanding of most. I find it even more ridiculous that people are asking AS to prove themselves and supply a copy of their patent when its not our business, nor are we a court of law here.

It is the responsibility of the patent holder to protect its property and remove the so called clones from the market place, unfortunately its often a lengthy, expensive and futile exercise.

You might feel differently if you were an inventor who'd spent years on an innovative new design.

For example, see http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=3467568n (there may be a short ad displayed first)
I have my own patents that I've fought in the past to defend, and am currently in litigation with a large European corporation over a patent infringement issue. Sure, I don't like it and I'll never be able to recoup the cost of this litigation even if I win, I'm not even certain if I can the cost of this litigation, but its part of doing business, that's all. At best we can try to diplomatically make our clients aware of the situation but this has nothing to do with the consumer and at this point they're free to choose and purchase either product which better suits their budget and tastes.
 

FromJapan

Member
Now, if this was about a starving artist selling paintings I might reconsider, but in this case we are talking about commercial industrial products made for profit.
Some of us do work for profit, and aren't exactly starving, though we're artists. :D
If A/S were smarter, they could have priced the Cube at $1500, and PhotoClam wouldn't have had the incentive to make a clone. If they were really, really smart, they would have lowered the price to $1000 after the clone came out, and destroyed the Korean company's investment.

Kumar
 
I hope all the folks here shouting for moral and ethical behavior on the part of the manufacturers are not using MS Windows machines... THAT would be taking hypocrisy too far... :ROTFL:
 
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ddk

Guest
Just to clarify a few points and stop speculation:

I simply asked Mr. Rethmeier questions in a PM, based on his comments which I did not agree with or which I found incorrect in relation with the links provided.
I was NOT:
-asking for any apologies
-that he deletes his comments,
-threatening anybody with legal stuff

But it is our interest to inform customers that this product is entirely based on ARCA-SWISS intellectual property.

kdphotography:
As a side note, Arca apparently has either horrible customer service or an apparent severe apathy towards consumers. I know Capture Integration made several requests for the Cube (yup---a real one!) and Arca apparently didn't think well enough to provide one to a dealer to sell.....

We have about a dozen Cubes for demonstration purposes at dealers Worldwide. However we are sometimes not able to supply a Cube for a certain
Show or Demo because they are all out at the dealers or not back in time.

Regards
Martin Vogt
Hi Martin,

Its good to hear from you so that we know your side of what actually transpired here.

Unfortunately, as much as I like your products, on the issue of customer support I have to side with kdphotography and others, in my experience, it leaves quite a lot to be desired...
 
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ddk

Guest
Some of us do work for profit, and aren't exactly starving, though we're artists. :D
If A/S were smarter, they could have priced the Cube at $1500, and PhotoClam wouldn't have had the incentive to make a clone. If they were really, really smart, they would have lowered the price to $1000 after the clone came out, and destroyed the Korean company's investment.

Kumar
And what do they tell their loyal customer who paid 2k+ for theirs? Their only choice is to try to PhotoClam through legal action, the price war assumes too much about the knowledge of consumer that competing products even exist.
 
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ddk

Guest
I hope all the folks here shouting for moral and ethical behavior on the part of the manufacturers are not using MS Windows machines... THAT would be taking hypocrisy too far... :ROTFL:
Or how many own AS type plates and clamps made by others!
 

FromJapan

Member
And what do they tell their loyal customer who paid 2k+ for theirs? Their only choice is to try to PhotoClam through legal action, the price war assumes too much about the knowledge of consumer that competing products even exist.
They tell them the same thing that Hasselblad told its loyal customers when they dropped prices. A few people on this forum know what they said. :D
 
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ddk

Guest
I never used the word obligation, so you're off on your own tangent there :)
Yes, you never used the word obligation but I don't see how I'm off on a different tangent:

I think the question is, should anyone be promoting a product which is in breach of IP law, even if you are not breaking the law by buying it? It might be legal but is it ethical? (I don't mean this as an attack on Willem because I doubt he did it intentionally)
That's not the issue at all with these 'problem' Asian goods. The first issue is the legal issue of patent infringement, the second issue is the moral issue of giving your business to the 'cloners' (even if it's legal) who didn't spend the money on R&D, and finally there are quality and support issues such as durability, fit, smoothness, warranty.
This is a slippery slope and I'm a bit surprised that so many photographers would gladly turn their back on other 'creators'.
 
J

jingq

Guest
wow here comes the asia hatin'.

if you go to HK there are alot of "knock offs" and sure some of the quality isn't up to snuff,
but at least they give me brochures, price lists, and can get one in from Shenzhen in 3 days.

When I try to buy european photo equipment I have to hunt to find someone who supplies it, and it takes a month for something to be sent over.plus they don't seem interested in following up on queries or trying to make the effort to sell me something. If I acted like this with my clients I would quickly be out of work

Welcome to the 21st century. You can have a good innovation but if you really want to build customer loyalty or convince people to pay good money for your stuff, continue to innovate and be one step ahead of the competition. Your innovations should be unique enough to justify their price and desirability.

btw in terms of innovation in photography I really wonder which country is the one that's leading the pack.
Last time I checked my european digital back still had a LCD screen the quality worse than my first 1megapixel fuji digital camera back in 1998.
my Canon has a live-view mode that zooms up to 10x for focusing.
the difference in attitude is night and day

the only obligation a consumer has is to the people who actually consider their consumers important enough to offer them what they need at a price that's feasible.
 

Graham Mitchell

New member
Yes, you never used the word obligation but I don't see how I'm off on a different tangent:
Well you started bring 'obligation' and religion into things which achieves nothing but obfuscation and was far from my point. A debate on morality is beyond the scope of this forum, so I will simply say that some purchase choices can be immoral in my opinion and you are free to disagree.
 
J

jingq

Guest
If the Korean company had copied just one aspect, that would be understandable, but to copy the entire device with its many facets is immoral and unethical, and probably illegal. I do wish that Arca-Swiss would make the presumed struggle public, to raise awareness of the issue. If the Korean company saw some kind of backlash due to their behaviour, maybe they would cancel the product and stay within reasonable competitive behavioural guidelines.

Personally, I find myself hoping that the copy is of inferior quality and manufactured with sufficiently low tolerance that it becomes useless in practice. This is not inconceivable, given that the design as is presumably relies heavily on exact tolerances throughout the design. I did see someone on another forum who had bought one and complained of sloppy tolerances in some axis.
haaaaahahahahahahaha.
Backlash due to their behavior? what, that they're offering a product that can easily be purchased online rather than jumpin through hoops and joining a club and waiting a month to get a product from an european company?

yes the tolerances might not be as exact as an arca swiss, but personally I HOPE that it is. might go to show that all the talk about all the incredible skills and training of european manufacturing is not as big a deal as people make it out to be, and spur Arca swiss to be more competitive and innovative.
 

carstenw

Active member
haaaaahahahahahahaha.
Backlash due to their behavior? what, that they're offering a product that can easily be purchased online rather than jumpin through hoops and joining a club and waiting a month to get a product from an european company?
Arca-Swiss' (lack of) support is a completely separate issue. There are no clubs.

The issue here is that there appears to be two kinds of people here (apart from the various "Asia and Europe haters" this thread seems to be full of, if one is to believe the flying accusations):

- Those who would buy a rip-off product knowing that a patent lawsuit was happening.

- Those who would not.

There appears to be no one here taking the position that they would buy a copy only if it was legal. This puzzles me a bit, but I guess that is the world we live in.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
There appears to be no one here taking the position that they would buy a copy only if it was legal. This puzzles me a bit, but I guess that is the world we live in.
Carsten, I think that nobody has said definitively it is illegal, so the assumption is it's legal. Even Arca themselves, who clearly know about it to the point of saying it involves their IP, have not officially said it is in violation of any patent they hold...
 

jlm

Workshop Member
we live in a global economy and as such. cheaper labor in some areas can make less expensive products, not necessarily less accurately made products.

but WTF; it piques my bile to see what appears to be an exact copy. this is not about the economies of geography, it is about ripping off another's work. apply any noun you want for "cube", be it book, poem, DVD, PHOTOGRAPH, song...the same argument applies
 
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