The case for copying business ideas • Hacker News Board

Re: The case for copying business ideas

#31

Post by bitL » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 1:14 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #29

bitL wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that creates companies like Behringer; they are right now in the process of cloning every single famous synthesizer that has expired IP, selling it for 5-10x less than the original manufacturers. This would obviously lead to market full of cheap clones (of course welcome by customers), but the original designers would end up on the streets or are forced to change their mindsets to cloners, likely in 20 years comp…

the original designers would end up on the streets They've already made their money during the time they had the patent, so I imagine they'll not be on the streets in any literal sense. Also they have much more experience of successfully selling their product, so they could iterate to a new, better version.

Usually the main creative engineers that developed those products didn't really make big $, instead sold their companies before bankruptcy to bigger players that then made some bucks off them by economy of scale, product synergies etc.

Re: The case for copying business ideas

#32

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 1:24 PM UTC

Hasknewbie wrote: post #24

It should be noted that the concept of originality and its associated "mighty pioneer Vs lowly copiers" mindset is mainly a Western cultural artifact. For example in China during most of its history if you wanted to become, say, a renowned painter, you were expected to spend your formative years copying the masters, because in that culture mastering your craft is (much) more important than being original. I don't hol…

[deleted]

Re: The case for copying business ideas

#33

Post by hau » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 1:40 PM UTC

bitL wrote: post #27

hau wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sitting on an idea indefinitely is not a good prospect either. Original developers knew that IP would expire and still produced original design. There're always risks, originality has some protection but so is availability and freedom of innovating at manufacturing, freedom to compete at costs. Original things can't be plenty if you can't base your work on something that someone made before. These synthesisers are ba…

Look at what is happening with Gibson (sellers of CakeWalk, Oberheim etc.), how many bankruptcies/forced mergers happened in that space recently; now imagine getting a perfect clone maker to the mix, selling "legends" for cheap that might be good enough for 90% of users; the original idea people won't have any funding coming from their older works, some of them might risk it for some new idea that if not received wel…

Didn't Gibson profited enough from their acquired IP? Surely they have to compete at some point and not just own idea forever doing nothing but moving shareholders property. Most importantly, engineers and idea-makers behind original solution made more than enough profit since CakeWalk and Oberheim were produced. Poor Gibson can't buy right IP at the right time so they can do nothing and not make anything new - who cares.

>some of them might risk it for some new idea that if not received well bankrupts them personally

Owning IP exclusively forever doesn't change this at all. If IP is good then you can defend it for a some time to make profit on edge.

>It's happening all the time

Not with synthesizers/software/ee developers because of IP expiring too soon.

>now imagine getting a perfect clone maker to the mix, selling "legends" for cheap that might be good enough for 90% of users;

Imagine what all these people could do now! They could produce new innovative things.

Imagine Gibson was shit and would make shit new software that would cost as much as possible and own IP forever. That's easy to imagine because IP rights holders pushing hard for this change. That's sucks for everyone but Gibson since they get $ doing nothing. They cn also easily fire anyone involved in this innovation and prevent them from working with anything similar.

Re: The case for copying business ideas

#34

Post by corporateslaver » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 2:04 PM UTC

Hasknewbie wrote: post #24

It should be noted that the concept of originality and its associated "mighty pioneer Vs lowly copiers" mindset is mainly a Western cultural artifact. For example in China during most of its history if you wanted to become, say, a renowned painter, you were expected to spend your formative years copying the masters, because in that culture mastering your craft is (much) more important than being original. I don't hol…

How many ground breaking innovations has China had? How many has the west had? Case in point, copying is not productive in the long run.

Re: The case for copying business ideas

#35

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

Hasknewbie wrote: post #24

It should be noted that the concept of originality and its associated "mighty pioneer Vs lowly copiers" mindset is mainly a Western cultural artifact. For example in China during most of its history if you wanted to become, say, a renowned painter, you were expected to spend your formative years copying the masters, because in that culture mastering your craft is (much) more important than being original. I don't hol…

That sparks a link to a nice little story: A couple of years ago in IJmuiden (a Dutch harbor town where I used to live) a containerload of 'old Dutch masters' was seized by customs. Inside endless copies of famous Dutch paintings, meticulous work made for peanuts by very talented Chinese painters who had learned to copy from their masters as well as ours.

Re: The case for copying business ideas

#36

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 2:07 PM UTC

corporateslaver wrote: post #34

Hasknewbie wrote: post #24

It should be noted that the concept of originality and its associated "mighty pioneer Vs lowly copiers" mindset is mainly a Western cultural artifact. For example in China during most of its history if you wanted to become, say, a renowned painter, you were expected to spend your formative years copying the masters, because in that culture mastering your craft is (much) more important than being original. I don't hol…

How many ground breaking innovations has China had? How many has the west had? Case in point, copying is not productive in the long run.

Steam engine?

Gun powder?

Paper?

Movable type?

Clocks, compass, alcohol and on and on.

Really this is a 'What did the Romans ever do for us?' type of question.

Re: The case for copying business ideas

#37

Post by kevin_b_er » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 2:11 PM UTC

0898 wrote: post #13

Smart people have always stolen ideas from completely unrelated industries. I mean, Gutenberg invented the printing press after seeing a wine press crush grapes. Velcro was invented when some guy found burrs stuck to his trousers. Genius isn’t conceiving some magic new technology. It's taking a mature technology and transplanting it elsewhere. For Christmas, I bought myself a pass to Masterclass.com. They have classe…

Until the modern era. Now those ideas are copyrighted and patented. The Wine Press Industry would've sued gutenberg and the entire book making industry for making "a device that can press plant material" if this were the modern era of Intellectual Property.

Re: The case for copying business ideas

#38

Post by jimmydddd » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 2:11 PM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #23

shubhamjain wrote: post #18

There are probably very few original ideas anyway. Google wasn't new, search engines already existed. Yahoo! wasn't new, web directories already existed. If you trace it hard enough, you could get to filling cabinets and folders. Over the years, I have realized that the idea of 'idea' is itself problematic. It implies that you can describe something very complex with a simple phrase (in hindsight, of course). What wa…

or to put it another way - execution trumps ideation. A great idea executed badly (or even mediocrely) will still suck, but an average idea executed to perfection will have the opportunity to seize the market.

"Ideas are just a multiplier of execution" https://sivers.org/multiply

Re: The case for copying business ideas

#39

Post by sho » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 2:13 PM UTC

corporateslaver wrote: post #34

Hasknewbie wrote: post #24

It should be noted that the concept of originality and its associated "mighty pioneer Vs lowly copiers" mindset is mainly a Western cultural artifact. For example in China during most of its history if you wanted to become, say, a renowned painter, you were expected to spend your formative years copying the masters, because in that culture mastering your craft is (much) more important than being original. I don't hol…

How many ground breaking innovations has China had? How many has the west had? Case in point, copying is not productive in the long run.

People said that about Japan 40 years, they said that about Korea 20 years ago, and it's already becoming irrelevant about China today. Yes, they caught up by copying, like everyone else did (including the USA).

There are now entire product categories which come out of China and no-where else. Drones. Camera gymbals. Personal electric scooters. Heck, their entire system of government could be called "innovative" - certainly no-one else has ever tried that before.

Give it 20 years and it'll be onto the next developing country which is copying to catch up, and China will be amongst the lead innovators - if not, as I suspect, the easy winner.

Re: The case for copying business ideas

#40

Post by Hasknewbie » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

corporateslaver wrote: post #34

Hasknewbie wrote: post #24

It should be noted that the concept of originality and its associated "mighty pioneer Vs lowly copiers" mindset is mainly a Western cultural artifact. For example in China during most of its history if you wanted to become, say, a renowned painter, you were expected to spend your formative years copying the masters, because in that culture mastering your craft is (much) more important than being original. I don't hol…

How many ground breaking innovations has China had? How many has the west had? Case in point, copying is not productive in the long run.

As @jacquesm noted, you kind of picked the wrong target there.

But to get to the root of your argument: accepting copying as normal does not mean "no innovation", but "different innovation". Does that mean ground-breaking stuff would pop up noticeably less often? Possibly. But it's also likely that once released these products would iteratively reach a higher level of quality than what we have now (I cannot equate "learning from the masters" with the existence of Windows 8 or Gnome 3, for example). Different paths, but headed the same way.