Chinese ripoff

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by alidesigner, Nov 3, 2010.

  1. alidesigner
    Joined: Nov 2006
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    alidesigner Senior Member

    Hi all
    I just wanted to let you know that there is a chinese shipbuilder using images and content from our website. I wont name them as I dont want to give them any publicity.

    The design they are selling is not ours so if you are considering buying one of our kits or a finished boat from anyone else, especially China, check with us first to make sure it's not an inferior copy. They even claim to have been building this boat since 2003 but I only designed it a few weeks ago!

    There are builders that have genuinly bought our plans, but none of them are in China.

    There are also other designs there that I recognise so I'm sure we are not the only ones being ripped off by this mob.

    Buyer beware!
     
  2. Squidly-Diddly
    Joined: Sep 2007
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    Squidly-Diddly Senior Member

    Orientals don't consider doing that a 'rip-off'.

    They have a much less restrictive view of "intellectual property", with is to say they don't consider it "property".

    While Europe was being ruled by the Catholic Church, with its strict control over access and interpretation of carefully guarded texts...

    the Chinese Govt was staffed by Civil Servants who had attained their office though open competitive academic examinations.

    Actually, the real founders of European Govt and Law, the Romans, were quite open and free with information and learning.

    The whole "I can control what you do because of some idea that I own and you don't" is a retrograde middle eastern slave trader concept.

    I've wondered what "the world" would be like if no I.P. laws existed, or if they were abolished today. I don't think we'd go back to living in caves. My guess is the people who actually do the work of "thinking up things" might do BETTER because they would be in demand as consultants, as opposed to being Worker Ants those product is owned by shareholders of a Corp that employeed them.


    The Chinese using your designs consider what they are doing as equal to kids copying the haircut of the latest pop star, or wearing an athletes jersey number and colors.
     
  3. alidesigner
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    alidesigner Senior Member

    Its quite funny, the whole website is just cut and pasted text and photos from various web sites all over the world. I just want to make sure no one buys from them and then blames us when it all turns pear shaped.
     
  4. Petros
    Joined: Oct 2007
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    Petros Senior Member


    This is one of the most ignorant statements about intellectual property I have ever read. In this country there is a notion that you actually have a right to your property, which includes your ideas. You do not "control" anyone because you own an idea! This is a stupid notion of criminal mind, that anything you can take you can have.

    It is pure theft that anyone else, in china or otherwise, would attempt to profit off of CNC Marine's designs.

    Without private property, including IP, the inventions we enjoy and the prosperity we have in this county would have never occurred. WE would be wallowing around just like all the other socialist utopias in the 3rd world.

    Some one should teach you lesson in what a market economy actually is (not a "free for all"). True liberty comes when you free to prosper off the fruits of your ideas and labors, which has been under attack recently, and hence the sour state of the economy. It is an Atlas Shrugged situation. (you might start by actually reading Atlas Shrugged).
     
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  5. Squidly-Diddly
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    Squidly-Diddly Senior Member

    I.P. is completely different from "real" because(in theory)

    just because someone else benefits from 'your' idea that doesn't make you "less whole" in the same way stealing firewood from your stack does.

    I forget the name for that concept.

    Read "The case against Patents" about how I.P. is mostly 'stolen' and little is or can be done.


    The Chinese COULD just change all the dimensions by 1 or 2 MM, and manually enter them into CAD and truthfully claim "this is a brand new original in-house design", but why bother.

    In other I.P. news.....socialite Paris Hilton failed in her attempt to use I.P. law to protect herself from the theft of her 'trademark' quip "Thats hot"
     
  6. cthippo
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    cthippo Senior Member

    I probably shouldn't wade into this argument, but I'm going to anyway...

    There is a significant difference between non-tangible IP and physical property, the two are NOT the same. If I take your physical property then you are deprived of it. You have less. If I steal your IP you have exactly the same as you had before. This is not theft, but at most violation of copyright.

    While the laws may not agree, the reality is that anything posted on the internet is fair game. I am, amongst other things, a photographer and I sell a fair bit of my work in various galleries. I also have some of it posted online on my website and other places. I know that by doing so I'm taking a risk that someone else will download those pictures, print them, and sell them. I also realize that there is not much of anything I can do about it, and so I don't worry about it. Odds are, if someone is doing this it's not going to affect how many prints I sell.
     
  7. Landlubber
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    Landlubber Senior Member

    Chinese R & D....Research and Duplicate.
     
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  8. cameron.d.mm
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    cameron.d.mm Junior Member

  9. cthippo
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    cthippo Senior Member

    hey, it's worked for every developing industrialized economy since the Sumerians.
     
  10. mydauphin
    Joined: Apr 2007
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    mydauphin Senior Member

    Had a interesting discussion today with a lumber company. It seems there is lots of competition from ripoff plywood coming from China. It looks good until you cut and it falls apart. Another reason not to build a boat in China, they use their own materials. So those that save a few dollars will probably get what they pay for.

    So focus on a better boat, and a better client.
     
  11. CatBuilder

    CatBuilder Previous Member

    Interestingly, giving away your photographs online will probably result in even more people buying the real prints. Why? It increases your fame as a photographer.

    Nobody's going to print and sell them anyway. The quality just isn't there, or at least you shouldn't have them online at such a DPI that printing makes a perfect, near analog-looking copy!

    This same free publicity effect has netted US musicians some of the most profitable years in history. They generally accept that the MP3s will go out for free, but that publicity and access to their music causes the fans to come in droves to the live shows. They make their money from live shows, radio play, merchandising and selling rights to their music. They make a bundle with this new business model.

    IP will never be the same since the computer can reproduce anything.

    The smart person capitalizes on this change and finds new revenue streams. Of course, this has nothing to do with the OP. Not sure what the new streams are when people rip off your hull designs, but it works in other areas.

    OP: We need that link so we can all have a laugh at the Chinese website!:D
     
  12. apex1

    apex1 Guest

  13. alidesigner
    Joined: Nov 2006
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    alidesigner Senior Member

    While these guys are happy to copy others they go to a lot of trouble to watermark the photos they have taken with their own logo to stop others copying it from them.

    Part of this game is having your designs copied, and pdf converters make it easy to create drawings from our free pdf's, but these guys dont have the cutting files so who knows what they are delivering - hence the warning. I'm not so worried about being copied but just wanted to distance ourselves from the unwanted association.

    You wouldnt laugh at the web site as its pretty good, and to people who dont know better it looks like they build a lot of boats - no surprise seeing as though the content is not their original work.

    Another interesting one, I had a guy from Turkey email me and ask if he could use our pictures for his new book of rhino boat building tutorials - nice of him to ask. Problem is we dont use Rhino. Should be an interesting book!
     
  14. Alik
    Joined: Jul 2003
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    Alik Senior Member

    Why don't You post the website? Yes, for them it will be publicity, but bad publicity.
    I also would like to see if any of our designs are there :)
     

  15. alidesigner
    Joined: Nov 2006
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    alidesigner Senior Member

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