Chinese Pirates Copy iPhone, Make Improvements 716
An anonymous reader writes "Popular Science notes that manufacturers in China duplicate many well-know products. This includes the Apple iPhone, imitations of which are rolling off the assembly line already. That might actually be a good thing for some users, who might enjoy the user experience of China's own miniOne. 'It ran popular mobile software that the iPhone wouldn't. It worked with nearly every worldwide cellphone carrier, not just AT&T, and not only in the U.S. It promised to cost half as much as the iPhone and be available to 10 times as many consumers.' The cloned iPhone uses a Linux-based system. 'The cloners hire a team of between 20 and 40 engineers to begin decoding the circuit boards. At the same time, coders start to develop an operating system for the phone with a similar feature set. (The typical cloner either uses off-the-shelf code, writes something entirely new, or modifies a publicly available Linux-based system.)' Using the iPhone as an example, the PopSci site walks through the process of making imitation technology."
Lots of cool products (Score:2)
But you cant get them here. ( and i bet the quality is pretty poor too )
Cool! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Say what you like about Apple, there should be some rewards for innovation.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you explain why?
Isnt the ability to make a similar product cheaper the sheer essence of capitalism?
Arent all those les afaire capitalists complaining about arbitrary limitation of the market forces?
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Isnt the ability to make a similar product cheaper the sheer essence of capitalism?
Arent all those les afaire capitalists complaining about arbitrary limitation of the market forces?
Also, if you will note, twice the mention knockoffs that are inferior:
"These clones bear our name and address," David Blackburn, the company's CEO, told the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission. "The label . . . contains our catalog part number and the initials of a calibrator, as well as a final tester."
Now, how does selling a counterfeit under someone else's name fit in to your view of capitalism?
The Chery QQ demonstrates more than just the skill of modern cloning. It also illustrates the danger. Easy-fit doors and rearview mirrors aside, there are differences--scary differences--between the Spark/Matiz and the QQ. As news of the copycat car spread last year, a German automotive club conducted and videotaped a comparative crash test between the two vehicles. When the Matiz hits the barrier, the front end crumples. The rear of the car bucks upward and then thuds back to the ground. An impact chart shows serious yet nonfatal injuries to both the driver's and passenger's head and legs (the chart distinguishes impact with color: the redder the deadlier). The Chery hits the obstacle at the same speed. The rear end of the car lifts higher than the Matiz and begins to rotate. The driver-side door pops open. Hood, engine and roof crumple into the passenger compartment. The frame buckles, bringing the vehicle flat to the ground. On the impact chart, the driver's head, neck and chest are brown and red: not survivable.
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Interesting)
Pure, unfettered greed from pure, unfettered competition. I guess all those laissez-faire capitalists forgot about China, huh? Doesn't work so well without the Man there to *gasp* regulate business!!! "But that's SOCIALISM!!" Oh noes!
Just because the quality *might* be shit won't stop people from buying cheaper a knock-off. Unregulated competition is the definition of pure capitalism as any Milton-loving Libertarian or Republican (Mitt Romney?) would tell you. Can't have your cake and eat it too, I suppose is the moral.
GP is right.
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, because capitalism = greed. There is nothing "capitalistic" about stealing. Your definition of "competition" apparently also includes illegal activity. Laissez-faire economics does not say "the government should allow businesses to operate under whatever pretense they like." Here's its actual definition, from wikipedia: "It is generally understood to be a doctrine that maintains that private initiative and production are best allowed to roam free, opposing economic interventionism and taxation by the state beyond that which is perceived to be necessary to maintain individual liberty, peace, security, and property rights." (emphasis mine)
Nowhere in that definition do I see "allow businesses to cheat, steal, or engage in other illicit activity."
Except it's not--nice try at a straw man, though! You almost got it. Nobody (not even free market anarchists) asserts that "regulation" encompasses basic property and security law. It is not considered "regulatory" when the government arrests a businessman for killing a businessman from a competing firm. Nor would it be considered "regulatory" if the government punished one firm for stealing another firm's ideas outright. (Note that I don't consider reverse engineering to be stealing, but there is a healthy debate surrounding that issue.) So, you're 0 for 2.
Why do you think Chinese goods are so much cheaper? The Chinese economy has posted record gains year after year, and they have staggering amounts of foreign investment. They continue to industrialize at a breakneck speed. Under any capitalist society, their currency's value should have skyrocketed by now; if anything, they should be dealing with inflation problems because their economy is growing so fast. But they're not, because they keep the value of the yuan artificially low, essentially dicking the rest of the world over in the process. That is why Chinese goods are so cheap. Japan and S. Korea experienced similar booms, but their products got more expensive as time passed, because their currencies were determined by the free market. China's essentially cheating, but due to their size and their strategic importance, there's not much we can do about it.
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
But then, the less you know the easier it is to be certain.
The GP refers to "property rights" as if that concept applies to knowledge. The problem with that assumption is, as any econ textbook will tell you, "property" has two defining qualities - it is excludable and rivalrous. Knowledge is neither and so his whole premise that cloners are somehow violating the principles of pure capitalism is completely without merit.
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Informative)
Communism != socialism. Sweden, denmark, Canada etc.. are socialists. USSR, China and Cuba are Communist. Stop it with the confused drivel.
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Informative)
Sweden, Denmark are social-democracies, not socialist countries even though they do rely on socialism as an ideology.
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Informative)
Just because you like to lump everybody into a "left-right" continuum and everybody left of a democrat is a Das Kapital-thumping commie to you does not mean that that is the way everybody in that group of people thinks.So what, pray tell, makes you a socialist if not relying on and following socialism?
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Interesting)
I've always wondered if Marx really thought that communism was the synthesis to the decadence of the bourgeoisie and the plight of the proletariat, or really recognized that it was a antithesis to capitalism and was merely promoting it to spur the development of a more amenable synthesis.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When was China ever fascist? Ok, you should make a case for Qin Shi Huangdi, but he was uniting a empire after all. China was imperial until the early 1900's, then chaotic and nominally governed by chief warlord Yuan Shikai (but he was more military despot than fascist dictator), then went into the civil war of PRC vs. GMD, then came the Mao years (please don't tell me you think Mao was fascist!), th
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
o.O
Stalin... was a fascist? If your historical revisionism can call the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the So
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What I see is that the free market has failure modes which create a similar problem to the concentration of power in a governmental system. You have runaway feedback
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Capatalism doesn't diallow this. Your trying to attach notions of innovation with capalism but it's not an inherent part. Look at the free wheeling capalism at the turn of the century. Or even the capalaism of the US ve Europe. MAssive technical espionage and stealing of ideas, designs, machines etc...Even as little as 25 years ago with the massive cloning of the IBM PC. The Theft of ideas has always been a part of capalism.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Here is a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall [wikipedia.org]
The assumption that the clones of IBM were not legitimate or that anybody that clones the iPhone is inherently cheating is completely incorrect. Anybody that opens an iPhone up and reads the logic, who then uses that to duplicate the iPhone completely would be opening themselves to lawsuits. Using the Chinese wall
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
The key issue here, I think, is one of honesty and decency. Have a look at some typical products developed in the capitalist West: MacDonald hamburgers, most cosmetics, most 'health' products. MacDonald meals are full of fat, sugar, soy powder and other 'goodies' that are basically ruining the health of the nation because they are being power-sold to our children through TV - this is certainly very capitalistic, but is it right? Is it 'deceny and honesty'? I think not. Cosmetics companies try to convince you that using their products will make your skin younger - which can't be called anything but a flat out lie; and the same can be said about all these dubious health products, which at best have no effect, or worst are harmful. Very capitalistic - you make as big a profit as possible no matter what - but fundamentally dishonest and indecent. Seen from this angle I think ripping off somebody and counterfeiting their product fits right in.
There is another facet to this that is always ignored when people complain about China, namely the cultural difference. We in the West have got used to the idea that copying the work of others is wrong (although it has not been this way for long - I remember that The Lord of the Rings was in the beginning copied and sold in the US without permission from Tolkien). In China there is a long tradition for copying great masters, certainly in arts, but also in other matters. After all, if something is good, why not? I am not saying that this excuses making illegal copies, but that's the way it is. 2000+ years of habits don't die overnight.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, but McDonald's never said they were a health food store and the cosmetics say look and feel younger, not make it younger.
Lord of the Rings? Some screwy thing in copyright law involving a difference between paperback and hardback books. Did you ever notice how any decent publisher still payed royalties to Tolkien even thought they didn't have to?
In China there is a long tradition for copying great masters, certainly in arts, but also in other matters. After all, if something
Essence of Capitalism (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Essence of Capitalism (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Two-way street (Score:5, Interesting)
redefinition of lost (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Company makes product.
China copies product.
Company notices China's version is almost as good, and contracts with them to make their product at a fraction of the cost.
???.
Profit!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll give a shred of credit for the iPod simply because they were the first to get it to market, despite the rather obvious detail that it wouldn't be long bef
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Interesting)
Besides, if there were nothing new nor interesting about the iPhone, why would the Chinese company worked so hard to make an almost exact copy of it?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I remember when it used to be Japan (Score:5, Insightful)
Beware complacency.
Not the same thing (Score:3, Interesting)
China is a WHOLE different matter. They are flat out stealing. But that is by design. The chinese gov pushes this and as long as American and European countries allow this, it will get worse. You are correct about complacency, but the real issue is Americans (and EUers) who
Re:Not the same thing (Score:5, Informative)
Another example is machines like lathes, milling machines, robots, etc. Germany and Switzerland used to have a good business there. Then along came the Japanese and ripped them off. Most of the German machines are history now because they could not compete against the Japanese who undercut on price alone.
What gets me is this revisionism in North America and how North America blindly has forgotten how Japanese used to run around on world fairs with camera's in hand.... Do I sound angry, yeah, I am because I was affected.
Though now I look at China and just laugh...
(What goes around, comes around...)
Re:I remember when it used to be Japan (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Copy, copy and copy. Whatever someone did on this planet, acquire it and copy it.
2. Churn it out cheaply and flood the market with cheap imitations. Yes, they were cheap. And unreliable. Ask anyone who was shopping in the 60s for electronics parts what he thinks of Japanese electronics.
3. Use the money generated that way to crank out highly qualified workers and engineers.
4. Improve the original design, make it smaller, more reliable and faster.
5. Flood the market with high quality and still cheap electronics.
Re:I remember when it used to be Japan (Score:5, Interesting)
Marty McFly: What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan.
Doc: Unbelievable.
Re:I remember when it used to be Japan (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, that's gonna break in 1-2 years as well. Then you buy the next cheap crap thing.
China is actually dead on target with their manufacturing. People want cheap crap, not quality products.
Re:Lots of cool products (Score:4, Funny)
As with all knockoffs (Score:2, Funny)
Re:As with all knockoffs (Score:4, Funny)
Listen, I'm not going to lie to you. Those are all superior machines. But if you like to watch your TV, and I mean _really_ watch it, you want the Carnivale'. It features two-pronged wall plug, pre-molded hand grip well, durable outer casing to prevent fallapart...
Re:As with all knockoffs (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, but.. (Score:3, Funny)
Side by Side (Score:2)
Brilliant! (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't that describe just about every single software project that anyone here has ever done? We either use something we already have, hack some other code into doing what we want, and then write new code as a last resort.
Sometimes I am astounded by the brilliance of the observations that are posted on the front page.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Brilliant! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I think it means that a cloner does not copy the original software that came with the iPhone.
Pirates? (Score:4, Insightful)
Damn those Communist Chinese! (Score:5, Funny)
Apple logo too, sorry (Score:5, Informative)
It had a bigger screen, supported video, had a built-in FM radio, handled most audio and video formats, and...
it had apple logos and names all over it! More and bigger than the real iPod. Who's going to stop them?
By the way it sold for 40 dollars equivalent in China.
Re:Apple logo too, sorry (Score:5, Interesting)
I found this the funniest thing when travelling in China; everyone is so 'new money' and totally insecure about having brand name stuff that all the logos are at least 4x the size as on the same US product. You never forget the first time you see a 4 inch long Alligator logo or the 3 inch tall Polo player on a guy's shirt...
I'm down with that. (Score:2, Interesting)
Open Source is an adequate response to the Cloner problem. If we can all make it, because its designed to be make-able by all in the first place, then there is no worries with the economy issue.
At this point, the question becomes: how fast can we all shift to an open/cloner form of economy, with local resources and local markets being properly managed in competition with the way they manage things in China? Answer that one, or at least have some sort of scope for the horizon, and maybe things will just ge
Clones aren't clones, just cheap rippoffs (Score:4, Insightful)
I want one if it's cheap, and if I get the source, but that's because I can stand sucky interfaces to be able to fiddle with the source.
Re:Clones aren't clones, just cheap rippoffs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
John Gruber, of daringfireball.net, makes the argument [daringfireball.net] that "it's good that the 1.0 iPhone shipped without them", even though he wishes this functionality were present.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So how long before ... (Score:2, Flamebait)
"Using the iPhone as an example, the PopSci site walks through the process of making imitation technology"
How long before Apple hits Popular Science with a DMCA takedown notice?
Chinese Fakes (Score:5, Informative)
However that had not stopped Chinese firms using our own IP systems against us by patenting just about everything they can get their hands on and then seeking money via the courts.
In a very real sense, they are having their cake and eating it as well.
My favorite story was the fake NEC firm and thats also mentioned in TFA
I suspect the biggest problem was trying to persuade them that they had been breaking the law in the first place.
For more information on Chinese patents see..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/693
For more information on the fake NEC firm, see
http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/slick-pirates-
To see some fake chinese brands..
http://www.hemmy.net/2007/04/29/chinese-fake-bran
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It has been my experience that the general philosophy in China with regard to just about everything is, "If you can get away with it and not get caught then there is nothing wrong with it." There is still loyalty to one's family, but the rest has given way to a general pragmatism born of generations growing up in an oppressive and amoral society which glorifies wealth above all other achievem
China: cleverer and more numerous (Score:2)
This must be true in other modern disciplines as well. How are the Western economies ever going to compete, once the East gets properly established?
Peter
Re: (Score:2)
They're not. And then the years of tariffs, non-cooperation, trade restrictions and political threats will come back and haunt us.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This woman was a bit paranoid and anti-foreign but it did have a hint o
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For all their failings, I believe that the things the US ostensibly stands for - liberty, equality and the belief t
The purest form of flattery (Score:2)
It looks to me like Apple has raised the bar of what we expect from a hand held device. The fact that someone is making a better(?) one is no surprise. No one could run a four minute mile [wikipedia.org] until Roger Bannister did it. then suddenly everyone was doing it.
Meizo (Score:4, Informative)
When do we hear RMS' wailing? (Score:2)
to comply with the GPL and release the source code and allow the device to run modified code?
The article didn't tell me where I could find the source for the GPL code used on the device.
Pirates? (Score:5, Insightful)
The company in question, Meizu, has been working on this product since before the iPhone was launched and is planning to base the it on Windows Mobile 6. Some have said that Apple "ripped off" LG's touch screen phone but, it could be like this situation. One product inspires another. The only difference is the popularity of the product doing the inspiring.
Sure, its a clone but, not a rip-off. Thats the way tech goes. You make a good product & people will emulate and attempt to improve it.
BTW, I do own a Meizu MP3 player & wouldn't trade it for an iPod. http://http//en.meizu.com/product_m6.asp [http]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Pirates copy DVD's
Pirates hijack seafaring ships. You're thinking of copyright infringers. The people ripping off iPhone devices are probably patent and trademark infringers. Totally different things.
Inevitable conclusion... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, sure the first versions will be of low quality - arrogant, angry, prone to bouts of outrage, hubris, violence.... posing a danger to all those around him..... but in time they will improve and eventually make a better Steve Jobs than the original.
Re:Inevitable conclusion... (Score:5, Funny)
It's no big deal, they can just sell them as Steve Ballmer clones.
US can't legally buy pirated products (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
US cell phone companies will have to recognize and allow the miniOne into their cellular networks.
What a dumb commnet. You could just get a SIM card from T-Mobile or any other GSM provider & plug into
the phone. There is no absolutely no way, the provider will able be able to detect it or do anything about
it.
Never underestimate... (Score:4, Interesting)
piracy? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Piracy" means violating either copyrights or trademarks. So, if they put an Apple logo or some unique graphical design on the phone, that would be piracy. If they copied Apple code, that would be piracy. It seems unlikely that they did either.
They might run into some patents, but patent infringement isn't usually referred to as piracy. Furthermore, the only really novel functionality on the iPhone is multitouch (technology Apple didn't invent but bought), and I seriously doubt the clones even bothered with multitouch.
So, this kind of cloning is probably not piracy. And given the many limitations of the iPhone, this kind of cloning is a good thing for the consumer. Even if they were the same price, I'd want one of these Chinese phones because it sounds like a better phone to me.
A reverse in the "original vs. copy" saying (Score:5, Insightful)
For a long, long time, you could often only distinguish between the original and the "cheap" copy by looking at quality. A real Rolex usually beats the crap out of one of those cheap imitations in reliability, accuracy and longevity. A real shirt of some brand was usually much more resilent and had better seams than the rip offs.
This changed dramatically in the last few years. Especially in the electronics market.
Electronics vendors want to grab you in their stranglehold of vendor lock-in. They want you to use their, and only their, accessories, or at best some that they approve (and get royalties for). Add DRM and the need that they must not allow you to use your tool in the way you want and you know why the copy is actually "more" what you want. They already ignore trade laws by copying the brand, how much do they care for DRM? And on top of it, they certainly don't care about vendor lock-in, since, well, why should they help the company they copy?
Now the quality argument has been eroded away as well, since yes, the copies are made in cheap sweatshops in China. Guess what? SO ARE THE ORIGINALS! There is no quality argument anymore for brand vs. copy.
So we have two tools which are essentially of the same quality, but one wants to limit me while the other one doesn't care as long as I buy the thing. Question for 100: Which one will you buy?
Re: (Score:3)
Quality is not primarily determined by the location or pay of the assembly plant floor.
US Knockoff Competition (Score:4, Interesting)
We could tell that the US government was interested in that competition, and not propping up incumbents with IP protectionism that only cripples American (and close economic allies like Western Europe and Japan) competition's chance to compete, if the IP controls like flimsy but unending patents and copyrights were discarded in favor of growth.
Not only would American competitors to these Chinese knockoffs benefit, but of course the consumers would benefit from the lower prices and innovations. Since consumers are most of the economy, along with the labor we sell to corporations, our economy would benefit.
Or, we can just let China eat our lunch, while we prohibit ourselves from fighting back.
OpenMoko (Score:5, Informative)
We needn't fear being copied... (Score:5, Insightful)
Quality? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then, what is wrong with making obvious fakes? As long as the consumer is fully aware and there is no deception, no faked trademarks, etc. What is the problem? I wouldn't drive a Chinese car quite yet or use an unapproved drug or related product, (like the toothpaste), I am certainly game to learn HOW they do it.
In yet another case, its profitable to over-produce 'authorized products' and sell them. Does it matter if your 'designer clothes' came from a fancy retailer on High Street or resold at 1/10 the price elsewhere? Remember they came from exactly the same source in this case. Hint: I'm not stupid.
People the world over tolerate Microsoft. Has Microsoft __ever__ made an original product? Isn't it strange to think about that for a second? Whats wrong with a Linux based phone that looks like the BSD based iPhone? I doesn't appear to have an 'Apple logo', something the end-user can add if it helps. Its a completely different product. Maybe it works better? Chances are it will break in half a year, but at a fraction the price: Who cares? If they've fixed the rough edges of the iPhone, like easy to change batteries, some sort of API, it may be preferable to many. The ones I've seen locally come with source and an API and cost about half the US price of iPhone, in Europe. AFAIK, it legal as long as you don't program it to do something illegal. (such as jam GPS or intercept calls that are not yours) Yes, its illegal to lock a consumer to a single provider or a single choice if more are available.
It appears today, the most profitable business plan is to base a product on an existing concept. Designing completely new products (like I do) has its challenges and risks. Usually it fails, but that one in five that wins, makes everything back and $millions more, at minimum. So China, like Japan in the 40s and 50s, is at the "Microsoft stage". Eventually they will, like Japan, think for themselves. Japanese products are quality, and China is likely to follow. There is no business plan in forever 'cloning' existing products. What if 'PC hardware' was only IBM clones? Fortunately companies do move on to survive. So do nations.
Bad Business Decision (Score:4, Interesting)
They should call it the 'iClone' (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Patent, schmatent -- supply and demand wins (Score:5, Informative)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Funniest thing I have read on slashdot EVER! You do realize that in order to be listed on any Chinese stock exchange you have to be part owned by the Chinese government, don't you? You also realize that individuals cannot "own" land in China, you "rent" it from the government for 70 years. Foreign companies also cannot set up operations in China without having to partner with government affiliated companies. The government can and does shut down companies for no apparent reason. Not to mention the "uncluttered by regulations" part tends to result in highly unsafe products. The list goes on. Somehow, I don't equate "being able to make random knockoffs but cannot do anything without governments approval" to be "true capitalism"
Yeah, uncluttered regulations indeed.
Re:Patent, schmatent -- supply and demand wins (Score:5, Interesting)
The safety of products sold is a prime reason to use a retailer and not buy wholesale yourself. Will Amazon or CVS or Wal-Mart sell unsafe products? They add their profit overhead to cover their infrastructure, but also to insure against buying faulty or dangerous products. If a product is deemed dangerous, they'll remove it from the market. If they find a large number of dangerous products from a given source, say China, they may go so far as to test products themselves before releasing them to the market. A large retailer can do way more, way faster, than the FDA, USDA or other organizations can. See: Underwriters Laboratories.
As for regulations, China is definitely not a regulated economy as much as the US is. China's provinces ("States") have varying degrees of regulations, with the least regulated ones growing the fastest. Doug Casey says about Shanghai [lewrockwell.com] "The dozens of hotels that can compete with those in Bangkok are starting to draw not just businessmen, but tourists. They like the beaches, and the shopping in a tax and regulation-free environment is incredible."
I've visitd Beijing and Shanghai, and I can tell you that government is quickly backing off of entrepreneurs and the business market. The booms in growth are amazing, along with the freedom that even a non-citizen has in starting new businesses. The same can be said about Dubai, where I'd love to at least have residency because of the unlimited opportunity to grow and blossom a business.
Re:Patent, schmatent -- supply and demand wins (Score:5, Interesting)
It's basically decimated the local film industry - China should be a huge market, but basically it's ignored even by local filmmakers, who aim themselves at foreign audiences - hence all those lame Westernish Kung-Fu movies from Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou. This is also true in Hong Kong, which has a history of excellence and two of the greatest directors in the world, Wong Kar Wai and Johnny To, who now rely on non-Chinese audiences or even have turned to making American movies.
Chinese manufacturers have to aim at the foreign market from day 1. Any successful product will be immediately copied by Chinese cut-rate manufacturers. It is economically infeasible to design a product for the Chinese market.
Imitations also are often of a much lower quality. Bootleg bottled water in Beijing was recently revealed to often be fake, using filtered Beijing tap water (you wouldn't want to drink it).
Local musicians aren't able to sell their CDs. Anything popular from local bands will be sold on the street for maybe fifty cents. There is basically no music scene in China, everything is bootlegged from Hong Kong or Taiwan or the US.
Goods in China are marginally cheaper, but it's at the expense of shoddy products that are often of a lower quality, and of a moribund IP development, and a lack of locally produced culture. There is no motivation to doing work or putting expense into research, if there's no economic reward - and there's no economic reward when your ideas are ripped off immediately.
I'd love to see all these people who are so opposed to IP restrictions actually consider their argument, rather than use it as their rationalization for why it's not stealing to download bootleg copies of "Transformers the Movie."
Re:Patent, schmatent -- supply and demand wins (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not that it'll get stolen---it just won't sell.
-=rsw
supply and demand sucks when you can't withhold (Score:3, Interesting)
But that is China's situation and is rapidly becoming the case in the west.
Re:Patent, schmatent -- supply and demand wins (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway compare China to India, right next door. It's a very large market, but only 60% the size of China's. People are much, much poorer, believe me it's not like China where every urban motherfucker sports a $200+ cell phone. And yet India, with stronger IP laws than China, has a vibrant film and cultural industry, a fairly large (and rapidly growing) skilled labor pool, and can actually support locally-oriented industries.
Obviously that's a simplified breakdown - but saying "all 1.4 billion Chinese people are poor and could never afford to buy anything that isn't a bootleg" is even simpler, to the point of being nonsense.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's basically decimated the local film industry - China should be a huge market, but basically it's ignored even by local filmmakers, who aim themselves at foreign audiences - hence all those lame Westernish Kung-Fu movies from Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou. This is also true in Hong Kong, which has a history of excellence and two of the greatest directors in the world, Wong Kar Wai and Johnny To, who now rely on non-Chinese audiences or even have turned to making American movies. ...
Local musicians aren't able to sell their CDs. Anything popular from local bands will be sold on the street for maybe fifty cents. There is basically no music scene in China, everything is bootlegged from Hong Kong or Taiwan or the US.
Wrong. Entertainment is a luxury. It's a luxury very few people in mainland China can afford. Most people are too busy trying to make a living to spend money on entertainment like music or movies. Thus, the market for such things is nowhere near as large as you're imagining. The pirate market isn't targetted at Chinese people in China. They're targetting people who can afford these luxuries, namely, Chinese people in the west.
That's why big-budgeted movies are aimed at a primarily weste
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
uncluttered by regulation and taxes?????? Your kidding right... You may not have a tax listed as part of the price but because most companies are owned by the government the government gets its cuts. Regulations yea right just recently a higher up governemtn offical was executed by the chinese government because of his corruption he lead to poisoned food to be export
Re:Not an improvement (Score:5, Funny)