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10-13-2007, 01:52 AM
So where are the Chinese knock-off dslr's? The Chinese Apples? The Chinese F900's? Or even a Chinese HVX200?
They don't make clones of high-end professional products in China because selling them without access to a network of professionals and gaining trust amongst them would be very difficult. Just take a look at how difficult it was/has been for RED to make people believe their product is real.
10-13-2007, 02:49 AM
are you sure?.. ehehehehehe :)Originally Posted by Han Mivsnew
10-13-2007, 03:53 AM
OK.
How do you think the government will view your film "China in the Red"?
At the same time, over the years of going to China, I was more and more struck by how little Americans know about China, and, in some instances, what negative perceptions they have about it. They do not seem to differentiate between the Chinese and the government, and they see the Chinese as somehow fundamentally different from us. This troubled me because the people I met -- the ordinary people who don't get much attention from politicians and the media -- were people I could connect with. They have had very different lives and experiences, but the people I met had similar interests and concerns to me -- jobs, family, making a living, housing, healthcare, bringing up their children. And I really wanted to show Americans how ordinary Chinese live. So it seemed that if we followed people over a period of time, we could let an American audience get to know these characters and relate to them.
Williams, together with Kathryn Dietz, her co-producer and partner in Ambrica Productions, has produced three previous feature-length documentaries exploring the history of modern China:
"China in Revolution (1911-1949),"
"The Mao Years with his RED Book (1949-1976)," and
"Born Under the Red Flag (1976-1997)."
Best regards,
STEWart
Founder
REDHKSC
10-13-2007, 05:11 AM
These items are made in factories in China. They don't knock these off because they don't have to. In many cases, the items you cite are siphoned off the assembly lines and the client Brands are given false production reports that understate the number of units manufactured and shipped. The overages are packed and loaded into containers and shipped under fake SKU's to countries with lax import oversight. Simplified: The factory makes more than they say they do and they sell the excess to markets where they know the Brand will have a difficult time policing. They know where these markets are because they handle the shipping of the legitimate goods.
If the Chinese government is truely concerned about its global image as an honest trading partner, it will remove artificial controls from its currency, enforce WTO rulings and provide serious penalties for media piracy, copyright infringement and intellectual property theft. Until then, the Chinese government will simply have to endure the slings and arrows of negative public opinion, because in the United States and Europe and much of the rest of the world, people are free to express their feelings even if they are negative ones. As for the Chinese people, they have my sympathy and my hope for true, unfettered, democratic reform of their government.
10-13-2007, 05:19 AM
Stewart,
I would have begun your last post with....OK, Bitches.........
But nice post...keep it up!
Cheers,
10-13-2007, 05:33 AM
Everyone speaks the language of RED
10-13-2007, 06:09 AM
I live in Thailand and I have never seen a fake Nikon or Canon dslr on the market. Ipods, DVD players, phones: yes, everywhere. But the point was whether RED was going to be copied in China and I am pretty sure that's not going to happen.
10-13-2007, 07:18 AM
Really? Like this kid?
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/...prosser28.html
Or how about this piece of work, which went all the way to the Supreme Court?
http://jeremiasx.wordpress.com/2007/...on-for-school/
Or on a simpler level, how about Howard Stern??
I wouldn't be lumping yourself in with the Europeans just yet. In Canada, we have a number of issues regarding free speech that are coming up over and over again. We're not that free Jeff. We just might be 'freeer' than the Chinese....and I say 'might' because it's all a matter of perception isn't it?
You also don't have a host of other civil liberties. You just think you do. That's called "spin", and the reason why U.S. media is controlled by a handful of corporates.
You've basically been perpetually at war with someone for what, 50 years now? That has got to drain on you...constantly fighting. Which by the way, this isn't intended to pick. It's just an observation that you might want to consider your surroundings carefully before declaring yourself free. The number one line item in the U.S. budget is for war. Education levels amongst inner city kids are ranking poorly compared to many countries, including China.
The same sympathy that you feel for the Chinese, a 9000 year old culture that is well versed in how to deal with dictatorships and 'dynasties', many people around the world feel for the american people. I live in the midst of many chinese people. I'm pretty sure they don't need your sympathy.
Unfettered democracy? Jeff, you have two choices at the ballot box. That's not democracy. That's an oligarchy. And the third guy, Nader, they won't even let into the debates.
Perhaps you shouldn't buy products made in china if you feel so strongly about it. They're manoevering themselves, as a government, into being able to buy America.
This article is somewhat interesting....
http://www.discursivemonologue.com/2...ties-trending/
You see them owning more and more resource extraction companies. Where do you think the coal from Appalachia goes? The recycled paper? Don't be clapping about freedom just yet.
It should mean, for you, if you want to keep America 'free', not shopping at Walmart, the number eight buyer of chinese goods, ahead of Britain and Russia. It means demanding of your politicians and corporations to stop out-sourcing jobs, and making hard choices about sustainability and self sufficiency.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/china/trade.html[/url]
Not to rant here Jeff. It's just wrong to speak on freedom and liberty as though we have it all, when ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and a host of other groups are talking about the steady erosion of liberties in the United States and Canada, and everyones standing around saying, yup, I'm free.
So again, this isn't intended to start a fight. It's intended to continue the dialogue as it has unfolded.
10-13-2007, 07:33 AM
Developing economies invariably violate international patent and copyright laws, control their currencies and protect local industries from competition: it's the only way they can survive. The U.S. did it, the European industrial democracies did it, and the Chinese would be foolish not to do the same, if they don't want to remain a poor country forever.
With our corporate subsidies, government bailouts and heavily protected industries, the so-called "Washington consensus", or "neoliberalism" is something we preach to developing nations, but don't practice ourselves, and never have (with the involuntary exception of the American worker, who's seen zero wage growth in 30 years).
Only look at the world's basket cases, if you want to know what happens to countries which observe the market-based religion America imposes through the World Bank and IMF but doesn't observe itself at the government or corporate level. For example, how has Mexico or Guatemala fared, for the last few centuries?
Then look at economic growth in China. This isn't to praise the Chinese government, but it's always useful to look at ourselves for a change, before dictating terms to the rest of the world.
10-13-2007, 04:19 PM
This is all true, but on an even simpler and more practical level there are other considerations behind all this. There is a life to any product, particularly a popular one. Also, before we rant too much on the way things are, we should spend some time thinking about what it would be like if we got our way and it wasn't the way it is. Don't rag on China too much. You can take the PC industry as a good example of the benefits of not too tightly protecting intellectual capital.
Remember a company called Compaq? They did their "copying" in Houston, TX USA--manufactured right there, not in China and in so doing, created a PC clone industry that sparked us onto the route that led where we are now technologically. Yes, I think you can actually debate about which was the bigger historical event--the IBM PC or the cloning of the IBM PC. Also, which was bigger--the ideas at Xerox PARC or Apple which copied them and put them in the mainstream. Wow, China wasn't involved in any of that were they?
So, how about a world with no Internet, no low cost/high power dual processor PCs and certainly no prospect of a RED camera and all of the support software/hardware necessary to make it work (for instance). If PC's hadn't gone through the life cycle they did, thanks to some creative intellectual property "skirting" we wouldn't be here right now on this forum.
The life of a product goes somewhat like this: it comes out, it's expensive because the tooling/development costs have to be paid for (or simply that the company can get away with a larger price based on the specialization of the product or the size of the market being smaller or whatever), it has modest sales by early adopters, then the copiers get to work to begin the real process of "commoditization" as I call it. That's where the price begins to drop to normal or affordable levels and the market for it expands if it is truly a product that many can find a use for. Indeed, the lower price may actually help people to believe they do have a use for it all of a sudden.
Yes we should have intellectual property protection but at what point does it become ridiculous and stifle innovation. Might a better system be that you're protected for three or four years and then its open. That process would drive people naturally to be improving on their own.
Thank heavens that Compaq (for instance) came along when it did and opened a market for clone PC's, fought the intellectual property fight with IBM (in court) and won (in court and in the market). They won because they changed/improved the original design and in so-doing paved the way for a generic PC standard, not just an IBM PC standard. More specifically, they made a "luggable" version and they changed the BIOS just enough to make it a different product.
IBM proved they didn't have the vision to carry that forward in the way it should have been (heck, they thought of the PC mostly as a terminal for their large machines--they never even believed the PC would take off like it did and anyone remember the PS2?). Who made the first hard drive for it? It was a third party in case you didn't know. So, looking back on it, it was for the best that it all happened like it did. Maybe not from IBM's point of view but from the world/society point of view. And, as nice as Apple computers are, they only enjoy a small market share thanks to the firm grasp of one company on their design, manufacture and marketing.
So, if it wasn't for the process of driving hardware (and in some cases software too--NLEs for instance) into commoditization through many versions/improvements from different manufacturers, there would never be any improvements, or lower priced items because there is simply no reason for companies to lower the price or improve on their own. They would pay their "tooling and development costs" over many times given the freedom to do so based on no competition at all. If the "EditDroid" for instance, had been tightly protected, we'd all be using EditDroids now on whatever machine they prescribed rather than FCP on an Apple or Vegas/Premier/Avid/Whatever on a PC.
If we didn't have PCs at the price point and level they are now. We wouldn't even be talking on this forum because it wouldn't exist and there surely wouldn't be the IT technology/miniaturization level necessary to make a RED camera at this price point either so we shouldn't be preaching about protectionism too much. It's all this lower cost hardware that's come about by the generations of "improvements" and copying (skirting around intellectual property) and the tons of money being poured into that process on both sides from customers to manufacturers that makes all this innovation possible in the first place. Yes intellectual property should be protected but where are the natural incentives for innovation/commoditization if its too tight.
By the way, you're not going to have to worry about inexpensive goods from China much longer. The price is going up as we speak. Perhaps still relatively inexpensive but not what you're used to and will probably get worse.
You can thank the US government for part of this with their pressure on the Chinese government to remove at least some of the subsidies to factories on export goods. You can also thank the weak dollar and the price of real commodities like aluminum (which are falling out of commodity status because of the demand for them) and the inability of the supply to keep up with the demand. The price of shipping has gone up too and is continuing to go up as well. You can also thank what I would call "the taste of success". They've seen success and riches now and want more in this developing third world country. It's already getting harder to negotiate with some factories over here--you'd think some of them were in downtown LA with the prices they're demanding now for certain things. ;-)
I don't buy that the RED camera will be copied. As someone else pointed out, there aren't any F900 clones. The only things that are copied are things that have a huge market and the market for the RED camera is not that huge and it's not that well known outside of the industry. Mom and Dad at home aren't going to be filming their kids in 4K or even 1080P for a while.
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