I was browsing Gearbest.com today, looking at their knife selection.
http://www.gearbest.com/knife-_gear/
If you're familiar with current production knives, then many of them will be recognizable, but not as the brands they're listed under.
To be honest, I have mixed feelings about the pirating of these knife designs. I have a few theories as to what might be going on. Maybe these brands have copied popular designs very well, and changed just enough to comply with the appropriate IP laws. Or maybe the companies that produced the official knives used the designs themselves, or sold the designs to other companies willing to produce and sell products with pirated designs. Take this design, for example, from the "BROTHER 1601 Axis Lock Folding Camping Knife":
And here's the Spyderco Manix 2 XL:
It's possible that they didn't use the same locking mechanism, just one that looked similar. I wonder if that's enough to differentiate it from a copy. I'm not being facetious or anything, I'm genuinely curious.
Or maybe Spyderco is aware of this, and allows it because they don't feel it has an impact on their business at all? (Doubtful, in my opinion).
Well, part of me really wants to get one. Like, that's literally less than one-fifth of the price of the real Spyderco model. But I'd want it mostly for the curiosity factor--obviously I wouldn't be able to trust it like the real thing.
Another part of me feels kind of bad for the person/people at Spyderco who actually designed it, if they're completely unaware and would disapprove of this level of imitation.
And yet another part of me feels apathetic, like, so what difference would it make even if they were aware? They might be able to stop one manufacturer, but their replacement would spring up so fast that Spyderco would never be able to keep up anyway.
Is there a better way to compensate people for their IP? The system we have now doesn't really seem effective, and if that's the case, should we just embrace it? I haven't thought about it enough, so I haven't really come to any solid conclusions yet. What does everyone else (anyone else) think?