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Chinese Pirates Copy iPhone, Make Improvements
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."
"The typical cloner either uses off-the-shelf code, writes something entirely new, or modifies a publicly available Linux-based system"
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.
They are using "free market" ideals against us! What are they trying to do to us by making things we want, less expensive and less restrictive? But there's one thing the Chinese can't duplicate! That "Apple Logo" (tm) that makes me feel smart, warm and cozy every time I buy one of their products. At first, I found myself wanting to buy anything with an "i" in front of the name, but then I realized I was just being an iDiot (tm). Now I look for the Apple mark on it before I buy because then I know I will be happy... just look at all those happy people dancing! It's because of Apple right?
I spent alot of time in China working in the CE industry and this does not suprise me at all. The local culture is that to copy and improve is natural and not illegal.
:"In 2006, NEC, one of the 25 biggest consumer-electronics firms in the world, went public with the results of a two-year investigation. The company had been receiving complants about products it didn't even make: DVD players, cellphones, MP3 players. Investigators from International Risk, a private security firm employed by NEC, ultimately uncovered a shadow version of the company operating out of corporate offices in China, with ties to more than 50 manufacturing facilities. "On the surface, it looked like a series of intellectual-property infringements, but in reality a highly organized group has attempted to hijack the entire brand," says Steve Vickers, the former Hong Kong police inspector who was in charge of the investigation for International Risk. Executives had their own NEC business cards and e-mail add-resses. They had marketing plans and distribution networks in place. Some "company" facilities even had electronic signs bearing huge, lighted NEC logos. Most bold of all, the bogus NEC actually charged the manufacturers it worked with royalties on its designs. The investigation led to raids last year on 18 of the manufacturing sites and the seizure of nearly 50,000 fake products. Yet the factories themselves are still operating, just not using the NEC name. The ringleaders of the scam have yet to be caught; like the Samsung copiers, they are thought to still be making fakes."
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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
If you were an old fart like me you would remember when exactly the same criticisms were said about the cheap Japanese rip-offs that were flooding the market and undermining domestic products that were simply superior in every way. The very idea that Japan would, or could, become world class was laughable, just ask the British motorcycle industry - or the US motor industry
Beware complacency.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
The title of this story is misleading and the story is as well. Pirates copy DVD's, not create new consumer electronics products.
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
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
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."
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
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.....
It's no big deal, they can just sell them as Steve Ballmer clones.
The copy is better than the original.
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?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No 3G..Battery soldered in...wait, that's the original iPhone!
The new fragrance from Calvin Klein.
Maybe because they aren't completely 'making' the product when they copy the internal workings of another? Development costs are a real factor in the manufacturing of a product. Someone who gets to copy another's product without paying the development costs reaps an unfair advantage, it's just like industrial espionage.
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.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Socialism killed millions of people and impoverished billions. Regulation is a violent intervention in peaceful trade, it's legitimate to oppose it, with force if necessary.
Communism != socialism. Sweden, denmark, Canada etc.. are socialists. USSR, China and Cuba are Communist. Stop it with the confused drivel.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I study literature, and at least in that realm copying was a two-way street. Dickens lost gobs of money to American editions of his work while Melville, Clemens, and others lost gobs to copying in England. There were no copyright agreements, so there was flagrant copying. In fact, our nations were at war with one another off and on during the nineteenth century. It might be best to not cry over spilt milk.
Patents are regulation. Copyright is regulation. Trademarks are regulation. Welcome to the real world.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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.