I don’t see this as a minimized fact.
Worse this look alike fakes are often placed above the original products when you search for the product even when you include the brand name, I mean surely they are cheaper both in price and quality.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against cloning the functionality of an product, I just don't like look-alike clones which can be easily mistaken for the original by people not aware of Amazons problems (I have seen it happen a view times with people in my family.)
How come the Feds will prosecute bribery form foreign officials, but not the CEO or COO allowing corporate property to be stolen?
To turn around and act surprised by this is like acting surprised that Trump keeps saying inflammatory things.
Maybe stop relying on IP as your business strategy ? Always be innovating so that you always be one step ahead those who copying.
People who create need to be able to benefit from that creation.
Some more are listed on the FOSSjobs wiki:
https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources#employer...
Only if they need that benefit. If they don't then they don't.
I agree, its just the strategy can be changed to not rely on IP.
Even things like Patreon likely would not work without copyright, as people would just steal the work and republish it on another medium. Open source business models couldn't work without copyright, and there is a minor rebellion underway in OSS against highly permissive licenses due to rampant corporate exploitation (e.g. "SaaSification" and rebranding and commercialization that robs the authors of even credit).
Virtually every suggestion I have ever heard for a fix to this greatly underestimates the petty avarice of humanity. If it can be gamed or stolen, it will. Some people have to be forced to treat others fairly, and there are enough cheaters to destroy any pure goodwill based system the instant an attempt is made to scale beyond small communities.
This is also why all goodwill based open protocols and systems are instantly destroyed by spam, trolling, and other bad faith usages as soon as they start to scale.
Everyone is not an asshole, but it doesn't take many to burn things to the ground.
Well said
And one's software is accessible to all cheaters across the globe (pretending for a while that everyone has a computer)
See https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/akz4xk/onlyfans-creator-n...
Here is a counter example. Up until a few decades ago, standards organisations like the ISO carefully guarded their standards with copyright law, and funded themselves off the proceeds of selling them. I'm sure they shared you're "standard organisations could not exist with the proceeds" outlook, right up until the IETF came along with there completely free RFC's, and won the networking standards war. One of the reasons ISO lost is it turns out a standard that can be read by everyone is implemented a lot more, and that in turn makes it worth more, which amazingly is actually recognised so people fund the development of more of those standards even though they know their hard work will be given away for free. The W3 works exactly that way, yet is funded by hard nosed corporates.
In some cases, the value of letting every one use the thing you spent millions on developing simply outweighs the cost of charging for it. Today's classic example is AV1, the video Codec. It's competitor, MPEG was does rely on copyright to fund it's development. The initially hidden cost of doing it that way, was if you can force everyone to pay a little bit, why not a little bit more, and perhaps a fair bit more on top of that. It took 20 years or something, but is exactly how it has panned out. And surprise, surprise, a few hard headed capitalist companies (like Microsoft / Facebook and Google) got the shits with this and funded the development of AV1, and gave it away for free.
Yes, the Patreon distribution model could a counter example. But understand that is an attribute of that particular method of distribution. If we removed copyright we may well lose that Patreon, it's unlikely we would lose what is being distributed by it. Music made it's way around the world long before copyright came along, the fashion design industry does perfectly well without copyright to this day.
In fact music is the most glaring example. Music distribution was heavily dependent on copyright for most of my life. Now, that is gone. Almost any song can be downloaded legally for free, and if not trivially pirated for free. The methods of distribution dependent on copyright right has indeed succommed to the petty avarice of humanity as you put it, the avarice being piracy in this case. But notice while that method of distribution has died, music lives on, and methods of distribution that are so cheap piracy isn't worth it risen to replace the old methods.
That's not to say copyright doesn't have it's virtues, but it very doubtful the world would stop if it died tomorrow.
I think my overall point is that IP law today is one of the only things that balances the power of pure financial and physical capital. Without IP law, whoever has the easiest access to the most cash wins, period. They can take anything they want and put as much marketing muscle as they want behind it. If the original creators don't have access to as much capital, they lose.
I think it's more true today than it was in the past since digital communication amplifies all these winner-take-all effects.
Another strategy is to create personalized custom solution. This would be hard to copy, unless you can copy the creator brain.
This is a really pathetic viewpoint to hold and I wonder if you actually live your life by these standards.
People need to think of it this way: there are people who will kill you for the cash in your wallet.
Another way is to provide customized personalized solution. That would be very hard to copy.
How is these pathetic?
Either way you have to adapt or left behind.
You had to spend time and money to create the thing.
The copycats can instead do marketing, convincing others they're the true creator
Without copyright laws
Personalized solutions might work for some products but not for others.
It is pathetic because it treats illegal behavior as if it you are powerless to stop it. It would be like if your house kept getting broken into, and someone gave you advice to stop owning things, instead of say putting up security cameras, strengthening the locks on your door, or buying a gun or guard dog. I can only imagine you've never created a single thing in your life if you think that other people automatically have a right to take whatever you do and do whatever they want with it.
"Adapt or be left behind"...of what? Once people steal the IP, it is unlikely they are going to all of the sudden become great innovators in the field. At best, they are going to just keep producing shitty knock offs until there is no market left for them. In that sense, progress stops because no one will take the effort to build something because someone else can just come along and copy it. So there is no getting left behind. There is just shitty people siphoning off the work of good people and slowing their pace to zero.
How about the adapting is putting sanctions or restrictions on companies that engage in corporate espionage?
I'm really curious what you do for a living, and how you would feel if your work product was just stolen and ripped off and then used to attempt to shut down your living.
yes, it doesn't much if you don't know how to monetize it.
>It is pathetic because it treats illegal behavior as if it you are powerless to stop it.
I'm not powerless, I still can make money by employing different strategy and I still have my knowledge.
>and someone gave you advice to stop owning things
I think its still a valid advice.
>progress stops because no one will take the effort to build something because someone else can just come along and copy it.
On the contrary, you always to have be progressing and innovating so that you always one step further than then copier.
What I mean left behind is if one refuse to adapt.
>How about the adapting is putting sanctions or restrictions on companies that engage in corporate espionage
I'm just merely suggesting alternative solution.
≥I'm really curious what you do for a living, and how you would feel if your work product was just stolen and ripped off and then used to attempt to shut down your living
I would be delighted if someone feel my product are important enough or useful enough for some one to copy it.
Like I said before there are strategy for making money that doesn't rely solely on IP
Also, not all business can be personalized solutions (would you want a custom car that no mechanic knows how to fix?), furthermore you lose economies of scale, which is a major reason why most companies are viable outside of tech.
The only reason google continues this is because they make money from search, but if they had to make money from phones they'd have gone under.
Thats not the point thats the cautionary tale. Google literally makes money only on its proprietary search and ad business.
Then only because of that can waste money on open source technology that can make no money because its open source.
Its not all bad, they don't and shouldn't limit themselves by relying on making money on one particular method anyway.
[0] https://policybynumbers.com/economic-stagnation-and-electora...
the american manufacturing base and a great deal of its skilled labor pool has been gutted and hung out to dry for the last 40 years. we're only now waking up to the true cost.
a) China is now creating their own IP. Because of course once you outsource manufacturing all the engineering and technical skill quickly follows. The next generation of products doesn't get designed in the US, it gets designed in China.
b) China being flush with cash is now moving into international finance. You can imagine how well that's going over in the financial centers of the indebted west.
This is obvious to any trained Western engineer who knows that manufacturing is a sophisticated engineering discipline in its own right, and once you master it, the other branches of engineering naturally follow.
Western managers however, believed that the Chinese would be content to do just manufacturing forever, and were incapable of doing design. A classic example of how racism bites you in the arse. Having said that none of those managers will suffer, they've already cashed out.
These are the hardest kinds of IP to reproduce or "steal", though. I can believe that direct infringement of formal IP rights might be an issue, but this sort of more 'tacit' knowledge is a different ballpark.
On the other hand, for a country, any company operating within its boarders using is ripe for exploitation. Unless a foreign company uses 100% foreign workers, and eschews all government inspections, then the knowledge is already exposed to your citizens.
With the way CCP policy is, if a trade secret is exposed to anyone on China, it’s effectively lost completely since the government can directly disclose it to who ever they wish.
20 years ago I was saying the mistake American Businessmen were making is they thought they somehow owned all those factories in China. And they did not at all. Since then Chinese companies have been taking over design as well. You spec it, they figure out how to build it at scale. All that IP they own not you.
The CFO survey said it is happening to 1 in 5 US corporations, which is incredible if you think about it - but the trouble is the scale is larger than that, when you include what they steal via surveillance too.
I can't see an answer outside of decoupling, seeing as they're set on their path and proud of it.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/1-in-5-companies-say-china-s...