The Intermission

A friend who recently read my post about the Nokia iPhone knockoff referred me to another blog where Gong Szeto explains why he likes knockoffs. Gong is talking primarily about the fashion industry, but most of his points could apply to any industry. Basically, he argues that copying is good for innovation because it forces designers to keep innovating. Also, he says it encourages what I will call “deep innovation” — inventing new fabrics, new distribution methods, new categories of clothing.

I can’t disagree with much of what Gong says, but I still disagree with his ultimate conclusion. Although its true that copy cats force established companies to keep innovating, it still feels very wrong to think that the company who spends millions of dollars in R&D for a new product can ultimately lose to a company who just clones that innovation. Of course the copy cat can sell their product for less… they didn’t have to do any of the hard thinking! And by buying from the copy cat, you’re rewarding their laziness.

Think of it this way… you either believe that companies who innovate should be rewarded with success, or you believe that companies who innovate should ultimately be killed by those who are good at copying. Personally, I’m willing to pay a little more to reward a company for innovating, and to encourage them to keep going. Though I’m willing to admit that probably puts me in the minority.

I don’t have the knowledge to do a thorough history lesson on this subject, but I know that people have made basically this same complaint against Microsoft for years. Microsoft finds something successful (e.g. graphical user interfaces, desktop publishing tools, web browsers) and creates a cheap copy. The cheap copy undercuts their competition and forces them out of the market. Then that market stagnates.

Although it sounds good and Darwinian to say that the true innovators will always survive, that’s not really true if they can’t make money from their innovations. But I will agree with Gong that I don’t care for those protracted copyright battles. Companies shouldn’t need the government to protect their intellectual property. Consumers should just buy goods from the companies they want to support.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 9:02 pm and is filed under rant, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.