niznai

Absolutely! That is my opinion too. People will buy the copy and their money will help build the industry locally (se the example I gave above with car manufacturers in SE Asian countries) until it will reach top quality and compete on equal footing with the heavyweights of today. And I think we will benefit greatly from this not only because of falling prices but also because of the intellectual potential tapped in China or elsewhere.

And this has already happened the world over where people have "borrowed" from one another's ideas and then tried to protect their investment in various ways, copyright legislation being one. On the other hand there are companies such as Coca Cola who rely on a huge sale network that can not be outcompeted to protect their product which has never been patented/copyrigthed (the drink itself not packaging and logos, etc).

autostyle

you can ask this hobbyshop, they provide online business

http://bbs.rcfans.com/viewthread.php?tid=207003

94eg!

iTrader: (17)

That one looks like it has alloy where the carbon goes, and plastic where the alloy goes. This is confusing...

RC MARKET

iTrader: (12)

http://www.rctech.net/forum/rc-marke...arket-104.html

lutach

iTrader: (3)

That one is the cheaper version. It's just like the Xray copy which comes with a aluminum or carbon fiber chassis.

JoeyE

iTrader: (45)

Who is copying who? China copy TAMIYA, TAMIYA got the car from Tech Racing.

But yea, it's wrong and I would never buy one. But even if they copy and sell only in China, at least they are keeping the RC industry going.

Toh WL

iTrader: (6)

They are doing this to serve the needs of their ppl. This also include demands from other developing countries or poorer nations.

If Tamiya to file a legal suit against them. Well then they already make a huge profit for bail out.

Good thing is they are helping Tamiya to sell their replacement spares. So it's profit to their pocket as well.

niznai

I think you will find that Tamiya as well as others contract smaller companies like Tech Racing and Kawada to develop certain parts of their projects, so that's not copying. This explains why sometimes there are hopups offerred by these companies but not by Tamiya. My guess is that these companies develop the hopups and then tamiya decides which they will offer and which not leaving it up to the likes of Tech racing to sell these hopups to recover some of their development costs.

TRF415boy

I'd like to raise a certain point here.

You're all talking about copyright but it is clear to me that you have no idea what copyright is. There is a distinct difference between copyright and a patent. Patent protects an idea an its application, copyright doesn't.

I haven't seen the car inperson and by no means am I saying that there is no infringement here, but what I DO know is that copyright applies to paper-supported means only (in our case this zould mean the drawings of all the parts). In some countries (like the UK) it does indeed protect the representation of the depicted object.

However, there only needs to be one difference in the drawing for the copyright not to apply. For example if one dimension on each part is different to the tamiya part then copyright doesn't apply and Tamiya cannot do anything about it.

Now this is certainly a knock off and I would strongly advise against buying the model, but as I said, there very well could be, technically speaking, no copyright infringement. Morally speaking though is another matter.

DaveG28

iTrader: (65)

This is a really interesting thread in terms of people's views of copying etc. Now, there's another thread on RCTech about the 501x (tamiya offroad) which states that tamiya's prototypes used BJ4 suspension, and that the production car exactly mirrors the BJ4 geometry for suspension arms etc. Although on a more limited scale I'm not entirely clear how morally that is different to this case where Tamiya are the victim?

It all gets very ambiguous (when not actually covered by copyright/patent law) once you get into it unfortunately..

niznai

I am more interested with the long term economic implications of one massive market producing goods they copied than the moral aspects. Quite frankly I think there's very few people/countries if any who can claim they have the high moral ground here (or anywhere really).

Economically, I think it is irrelevant what x or y would do when you're talking of tapping a market virtually bigger than everything else put together. I think this is what most fearmongering comes from. Personally I am not afraid of any invasion of cheap copies of this or that because I have noticed no great manufacturer has gone under just because someone copies their product and sells it at low prices. Tamiya (or anyone else copied) I think has a huge opportunity here and things can then go either way. I hope they realise the position of huge power they're in and decide wisely. Their decision will definitely have long term implications for the future of our beloved hobby and that's where my interest comes in. Some people here have expressed the opinion that licensing Tamiya products to China or moving production there will damage quality standards, some people believe that it can bring prices down without any loss in quality. This is the interesting part of the discussion as far as I am concerned.

On the side topic of prototypes I think that's even harder to consider in black and white. Prototypes are by their very nature things someone cobbled together for whatever reason. I for instance mix and match parts in my cars as I see fit (and there's plenty of people doing it around here as one can see by just flipping through the various topics) to achieve my desired outcomes, effectively creating unique cars that can be easily considered prototypes for all intents and purposes. I doubt however anyone in their right mind (much less any authority) could fault anyone for that.

TRF415boy

Well I can tell you that since the arms don't look anything like each other between the 501X and the BJ4 there is absolutely no infringement there, as copyright certainly doesn't apply to suspension geometry. If the parts were a copy of the BJ4's parts in every aspect and dimension then maybe, but that is not the case. And one could argue that the BJ4 uses the geometry of the XX4 at the front and of the B4 at the rear anyway.

DaveG28

iTrader: (65)

Sorry didn't mean there was copyright issues, but a lot of people here are focussing on the moral issue, and copyright aside copying is copying! Many rc companies (I wasn't meaning to attack Tamiya specifically, I like Tamiya products) run prototypes made of other kits, in the 501 case the bj4 suspension for example, and the bj4 using Losi(?) etc. They then take the bits they like and make their own parts. Well, to be honest morally I am not convinced doing that is different to what has happened here (assuming tamiya's technical drawings weren't stolen/used?), so in my mind most of them copy each other! Another example is tamiya have a new slipper spring on the 511 that's uncannily like the Losi item!!

TRF415boy

Running other manufacturer's parts on a prototype car isn't copying, for the very reason that they haven't produced the part themselves. It's simply a much cheaper way of testing different solutions.

sammz_987

iTrader: (11)

haiz!!!!! is there any surprise at all that this is coming out from China???!!! they ARE well known for all this kind of crap what...they are the capital of the world for imitations and copies, what. not to say 1:10 rc cars.....even the real mccoy 1:1 car also they copy!!!!!