
Your Kickstarter idea on sale in China before you’ve finished funding it (2016) - thekhatribharat
https://qz.com/771727/chinas-factories-in-shenzhen-can-copy-products-at-breakneck-speed-and-its-time-for-the-rest-of-the-world-to-get-over-it/
======
userbinator
_Yet Sherman estimates that he has lost “hundreds of thousands” of dollars in
potential revenue due to copycats._

Just like piracy, it doesn't work that way. Far more people are willing to pay
$10 for a selfie-stick phone case than $50.

Alternatively, I've also seen a lot of Kickstarters which were simply
"marketing" for an existing yet not-so-well-known product available from
Alibaba, with a substantial markup added. This means there is already
significant "innovation" happening in China, contrary to what a lot of people
think --- they just haven't seen the true scale of what manufacturing in China
looks like.

~~~
lrem
Yes, there are more people willing to pay $10 than people willing to pay $50.
But, how many people willing to pay $50 would prefer to pay $10 and will
switch once the option arises?

~~~
kakarot
Doesn't matter. The economy should ultimately favor the buyer, not the seller.

~~~
jfim
I disagree. The whole point of IP laws is that they provide a monetary
incentive to innovate.

If someone decides to take some time off to invent a new device and incur a
financial risk to bring it to market, they should have the opportunity to
profit from it. If new inventions are cloned within weeks in Asia and undercut
the original inventor, where's the incentive to take risks on novel
inventions?

If the invention was trivial, why didn't the Chinese manufacturers come up
with it in the first place?

~~~
thatcat
Why are you assuming that kickstarter projects would have any IP? It seems
that a very low percentage of kickstarter projects would own IP on their
devices considering the amount of time and cost involved in just applying for
a patent.

If no one owns a patent that covers the design then manufacturing a bunch of
"copies" for a much lower price isn't illegal. It makes sense that kickstarter
would be targeted as a source of not patented ideas to use.

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kenned3
Is it just me, or is this article incredibly biased?

here's a thought.. if you dont want your stuff counterfited, dont outsource it
to china. The companies loved the idea of "cheap labour" and also want the
underpaid employees to be honest and loyal to them?

The "high price of low cost" at play here..

In this selfiestick, china is bad here.. but for a lot of the counterfits..
you sent china the moulds, templates, specs.. hmmm...

Jack Ma is correct, a lot of the counterfits come from the same factory
someone outsourced to.. so what is the difference between a "counterfit" and
"genuine" article other then price?

~~~
jfim
> so what is the difference between a "counterfit" and "genuine" article other
> then price?

The counterfeit product has no incentive to ensure their product is of high
quality, as long as it passes a cursory inspection before/after being bought.
If you buy a brand X product and it fails after six months, you can complain
to the company about it, you can post on social media to make it known that
brand X doesn't last long, and so on. Brand X has an incentive to make sure
their products last as long as customers expect them to, that they're safe,
etc. as to not tarnish their brand image.

If you get a FakeX branded product, who do you complain to when it breaks six
months later? The AliExpress seller is long gone, the FakeX brand is replaced
by FakeX+1 brand, and you're pretty much SOL.

If the product has a major defect or safety issue, there are no recalls for
FakeX branded products. How many hoverboards were recalled for being fire
hazards?

~~~
TeMPOraL
This applies as much to genuine products as it does to counterfeit ones. If
the company behind the genuine product wanted to ensure high quality, they
wouldn't outsource manufacturing to China, to the cheapest plant available.

Chinese plants generally give you what you pay them for. See how much crap you
can buy in western shops, made by western brands, but "in China". It's not the
"in China" part that's responsible for it, it's the pittance the western brand
is willing to pay for manufacturing and controls.

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api
Wow, it's like an AI that makes your product for you! Put up a project on
Kickstarter and if it gets funded just buy the product from China and send it
to your backers.

~~~
anoncoward111
Right, except the AI is just really "cost-effective" labor and manufacturing,
with some corners cut on small items like ethics, human rights, and materials.

~~~
jacobush
Sounds like most dystopian AI to me.

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sytelus
This is very easily preventable if Amazon easily allowed the listing to be
flagged for IP violation. Such multiple violations should cause supplier to be
banned. It is quite surprising that foreign supplier just can dump whatever
they want without any regards to IP in US markets via Amazon.

~~~
lozenge
Amazon just doesn't care. They let hundreds of suppliers sign up with the same
bank account details.

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BugsJustFindMe
Comment thread from 2016:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12724096](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12724096)

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toast0
This is terrible if you're trying to make money from your product, but it's
great if you just want to make something that you can't find in the market.
Although it would be nice to not have spent the time and money on prototypes
and getting ready for a Kickstarter.

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mkio
Here's a nice documentary about foreigners moving their startup to Shenzen,
where they can have same-day prototypes built and go into production
immediately: [https://youtu.be/SGJ5cZnoodY](https://youtu.be/SGJ5cZnoodY)

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pkaye
I wouldn't might sending the Chinese companies some ideas to implement but I
guess what they was is validated ideas to reduce the risks.

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Animats
Hence the proliferation of "X as a service".

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pascalxus
The real problem is: why can they produce it 5 times cheaper? that's the real
question you should ask yourself.

The cost of production is much lower there because living costs are lower. The
lower we can get our living costs here in the US, the more wealthier and
productive and more competitive we'll be. instead of focusing on relentless
gdp growth, we should instead focus on what we can do to reduce costs
everywhere here at home, that will make us more competitive.

~~~
Arbalest
Have to be careful with this line of thought. Are costs high because workers
are paid too much, or because margins are too high on necessities that workers
need?

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ridgeguy
This is why it's worthwhile filing a provisional patent application ($70).

When your product takes off, you have a potential recourse if you're ripped
off.

~~~
Animats
This guy's sliding selfie stick probably isn't patentable. Telescoping selfie
sticks are known. Parallel sliding telescoping devices are known; ladders are
made that way. So it's an obvious combination of prior art.

~~~
naasking
But "handheld/miniaturised ladders" are not a thing, so even if the mechanism
is the same, the application is different and that's probably enough for a
patent.

~~~
coldtea
> _But "handheld/miniaturised ladders" are not a thing_

No, but there are tons of handled/miniaturised telescopic devices. Antennas in
portable walkie talkies and radios are an obvious example, there are umbrellas
like that, and tons of other things...

~~~
chillacy
You can own a patent for telescoping ladders and still have to pay royalties
to the owners of the telescoping mechanism patent. And if anyone else makes a
telescoping ladder with a beverage holder, they can patent that but you can go
after them because your patent is more generic. More generic patents take more
effort to get but are much more valuable because of this.

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majia
Very boardly speaking, if something can be easily copied, it means the value-
adding part is not comimg up with the idea, but the execution of it.

~~~
dhnsmakala
I would think the opposite. If something is easily copied, it means the
execution is simple. The value adding part is coming up with the idea that
people want.

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microtherion
Far more frequently, I see Facebook ads for rebranded and heavily marked up
Chinese products.

In a way, the Western resellers are providing a service with their ad
spending, in that I sometimes see products I like, trace them back to the
original manufacturer, and buy them there.

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andybak
As somebody who toys with the idea that we'd ultimately be better off with
minimal (or even no) IP protection in law this is a fascinating case study.

Let's assume this situation remains in place for a long period and knowledge
of it spreads widely. There'd be no more kickstarters like the one in the
article.

How does this play out in the long term? What kind of world are we left with?

~~~
sytelus
Assume that there was no IP laws and everybody is freely allowed copy
software/ideas/content as they see fit. Now developing a significant size
software takes human hours. There is a fixed cost associated per human hour.
Now let’s say your cost was $1M and it’s useful to 1M people. As there are no
laws to protect IP, I can’t divide my cost to potential users and sell my
software at $1 a pop. If I do that then I can’t recoup my cost. This means I
must sell my software at $1M to richest possible single buyer. Or create a
buyer group much like vacation condo model. In either case, no IP translates
to scenario where only upper class of society can benefit by advancement in
innovations.

This is a massive philosophical “bug” in free software movement. It’s one of
the goal to make software more accessible to everyone but under the reality of
economics it does exactly the opposite. Once free software arrives on market,
cheaper but slightly superior commercial versions will die out and only
expensive superior versions will live benefiting more affluent
class/organizations.

The hybrid models where you provide enterprise support for money while keep
things free is interesting but I am still not sure that it can be as powerful
when you can use full power of economy to drive resource scaling at fullest
extent. Most companies which use this model run extremely frugal and usually
can’t afford large scale research and development activities.

The things that has been described in article has already caused significant
damages. There have been Chinese companies who received designs from
innovators and started creating white label products. They didn’t had to worry
about capital cost of arriving at that design or reliability to protect the
brand reputation. They also didn’t care about doing R&D investments to evolve
the product further. The focus was strictly on generating cheap knockoffs that
produces short term profits and then move in to next victim. So in essence,
your model of IP extinguished innovation, it’s evolutio and promoted cheap
short lived knockoffs.

~~~
andybak
I do understand the fundementals of this topic. I've grown up with the
assumption that everything you state is right and proper. I'm also aware that
IP laws have a significant downside as they require fairly elaborate and
repressive measures to maintain and they come with many indirect costs.

(On a side note as I don't want to derail the central point we're discussing:

> but under the reality of economics it does exactly the opposite.

Considering most computing devices on the planet are running an open source OS
then this is surely open to debate)

~~~
sytelus
One would argue that Linux has stalled OS evolution. It's free so there is no
incentive for other innovators to come forward and invest massive resources
and capital. The OS investment at all major companies had been drying up.
Think about it, this is now almost 50 year old OS. There have been virtually
not much of research, advancement or evolution even when *inux has several
opportunities to rethink design and architecture in so many areas. To a common
user, it's even hard to use, manage and understand but we are still stuck with
it. We carry almost half a century worth of historical baggage with us every
day with no end in sight. Here's interesting reading:
[http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utah2000/utah2000.html](http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utah2000/utah2000.html)

You will see this pattern virtually everywhere when free software has become
standard and it brings to halt research and development in that area that may
require large scale capital.

------
ondiekijunior
China has enabled trading to be easier. I have a device, PlusX 5501, just
patented across US and some African countries. Officially not launched.
Chinese companies have over $800000 in sales for nearly the same device some
with innovations not on the original device. As I work on the software front,
my bet is that I will make my innovation on the software, potential name brand
markup as well as support.

~~~
hayksaakian
I tried googling plusx 5501 and didn't find anything relevant.

I'm genuinely curious about what device you're talking about.

Would you mind sharing?

~~~
btgeekboy
Funnily enough, these two comments are now the top 2 Google results for "plusx
5501".

~~~
sah2ed
XKCD 369 [0] strikes again :)!

[0] [https://xkcd.com/369/](https://xkcd.com/369/)

