Gary Stanfill is principle consultant for Colmar Systems, based in Southern California. His company has provided engineering and marketing consulting services to wireless microphone manufacturers for several years. Stanfill was president and general manager of Vega, a leading manufacturer of wireless microphone systems, for 18 years. He has over 30 years experience in audio, RF technology, communications and wireless systems. Gary can be reached at gjstanfill@earthlink.net
Tackling the issue of product design theft
Imitation is the sincerest
form of flattery, it's said. But try telling that to a pro audio
manufacturer whose killer new product design has just been ripped off by
someone.
This "someone" is a knockoff manufacturer. Someone who didn't
spend months or years and hundreds of thousands of dollars inventing the
new product. Someone who didn't agonize over achieving just the right mix
of performance, features and price. Someone who didn't take any of the
risks.
This "someone" is a thief.
Not so long ago, when a manufacturer brought out a product that became
popular, competitors would rush to bring out their own versions. However,
these companies would attempt to improve upon the original product: to
increase performance, add worthwhile features, correct small shortcomings
in the original design and offer a better product.
This model has served the audio industry well over the years, although it
has not always been kind to the innovators. That’s capitalism - it
works, and has consistently resulted in better and more reliable products,
major strides forward in audio quality, new ways of doing things, and
competitive prices.
And skillful people and companies have made money the old fashioned way:
they’ve earned it.
Imitation As Flattery?
Blatant rip-offs of successful products have become a major problem. These
are direct copies of products, designed to mimic the original product in
almost ever detail, often cleverly packaged and promoted in such a way as
to deliberately confuse buyers.
In many cases, the actual design is virtually a direct copy of the
original, with a few key corners cut. Of course, these products are always
cheaper, a “bargain” that is presented as being "just as
good" as the real thing.
Unless you’re a manufacturer, or work for one, why should you care?
Aside from the obvious ethical issues, there are many very good reasons.
First, a good many of the products being ripped off are developed by North
American companies, and those doing the ripping off are headquartered
elsewhere.
These entities don't hire your neighbors to design, build, test or sell
their products. In fact, they may cost your friends and neighbors their
jobs. They pay little or no taxes to support schools, hospitals, police
and fire departments, or repair roads. They don't buy their parts and
supplies in your area.
Still not impressed? After all, you get all the "features" of
the original product, and at a lower price. Or do you? Features are not
performance; they are knobs, buttons, connectors and "stuff.”
And features are not audio quality; in fact, most features are cheaper to
implement if you don't worry about how the equipment actually sounds. And
features are not reliability, long-term dependability and customer
support.
Robbing Peter To Pay Paul?
There is also the question as to where all those savings actually came
from. Certainly labor costs are much lower in many parts of the world as
compared to North America. But automated manufacturing can make up a good
deal of the difference, while transportation costs, tariffs, taxes and
various other costs further narrow the gap.
This means that most of the savings must come from somewhere else.
Reducing component quality is one of the easiest ways of cutting cost.
Wide tolerance, cheap parts cost much less than quality components, but
their useful life will likely be far shorter.
And if a “bargain” piece of equipment does fail, can you get it fixed?
Warranties tend to be short and once a unit is out of warranty, service
might not even be available. Often this means that the equipment has to be
tossed.
Engineering is even more expensive. Designing quality products is not easy
or simple, and the process is time consuming. Just defining a successful
product is often quite difficult and few companies routinely get it right
on the first pass.
As a result, somewhere between 8 percent and 20 percent of the cost of a
high-tech product goes to pay for engineering. What a huge savings if a
company just steals someone else’s design and avoids all those nasty
costs!
One of my more interesting experiences while working at a high-end
wireless company was to see mistakes and schematic errors faithfully
copied by the knockoff artist!
What’s The Real Solution?
Why don't manufacturers take legal action to stop the rip-offs? A few
larger companies do. Unfortunately, however, almost all of the knockoff
manufacturers are in countries that refuse to protect the intellectual
property of other countries. Plus, litigation is expensive.
The real solution to the problem is in the hands of the people who specify
and purchase audio equipment. Until they resist buying knockoffs, both
because it’s the right thing to do and because it’s in their own
self-interest, the problem is likely to continue.
Footnote sent in by Falco (2007)
Some counterfeit product and packaging is, at first glance very close. There are a couple of giveaway signs - the colour code ring on the transmitter was the wrong colour, and the buttons on the receiver are also the wrong finish. When you take the basket off the mic, you can see then that it's not a genuine capsule, and as you unscrew it and pull it apart, it becomes increasingly apparent. Same with the receiver. Apart from the buttons (which a punter wouldn't spot anyway), it's when you get inside it that you see the boards are totally different. Again though - a punter wouldn't know that! Although they are far better than some copies I've seen recently! Most, most annoying.
Some greedy punters just can't get their heads around the adage that if an offer seems too good to be true, then it almost certainly is too good to be true. put a buyer's guide up on ebay some months ago to this affect, but unfortunately some people's greed for a "bargain" gets the better of them. Learn more at: http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Beware-Fake-Radio-Microphones_W0QQugidZ10000000003659906
