Gini rigs cage for Scarlet

[Brian F Kobylarz]

The confusing part of this to me is that Wooden Camera's cage seems to be just as blatant a rip-off of the FMJ as Gini's, but no one is complaining about that.

Actually, someone is complaining about that - that would be RED (as demonstrated by their court filing).

We do not know who has what inventions agreements, licensing, permissions - and who knows what other types of documents that relate to the similar products.

As others have pointed out, that is now with the lawyers.

To the point of supporting WC, there are many products they offer that are unique and innovative (only a couple are being challenged). Beyond that, WC has been responsive to our community - filling gaps and setting standards in customer satisfaction.


Perhaps I should have held my thoughts closer to my vest - after all, I am not in possession of any documents related to Gini.
I assumed based on anecdotal evidence (such as what Mike pointed out). In reality, one should never assume. Could have waited for that legal hammer to fall.
To any that I offended by expressing my views on intentional theft, my apologies.

 

[Lee Saxon]

Actually, someone is complaining about that - that would be RED (as demonstrated by their court filing).

See, that's where it gets confusing to me. It's not Red but Viewfactor whose idea has been stolen here.

 

[Tim Morten]

Hmm... the idea of a camera cage with ribs doesn't seem entirely original, even for ViewFactor.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Gini are ripping off a series of people. Their follow-focus is a PHOTOCOPY (again) of Cinevate's (only from the reviews you find out it's made like crap). When you buy stuff like this, you are also transferring jobs from Canada and the U.S. - good living wage jobs - to semi-enslaved workers who knows where with no safety or environmental regulations. I don't want bad mojo around my prodco, so whenever possible, we buy Euro, Australian, or North American made stuff. The economy will never recover unless we all pitch in.

 

[Brian F Kobylarz]

See, that's where it gets confusing to me. It's not Red but Viewfactor whose idea has been stolen here.

Now that is exactly why I mentioned that assuming can lead any of us astray...

Quoting myself: "We do not know who has what inventions agreements, licensing, permissions - and who knows what other types of documents that relate to the similar products."

For all we know, Brook may have assigned / sold ownership of the product ideas to RDC while maintaining the rights to sell through VF for a determined or undetermined amount of time. Is that what has transpired? Who knows - from our pedestal of ignorance (I count myself as one of those) we can only speculate. Brook himself chose not to add new comments to the threads that were pulled - perhaps an NDA in effect, perhaps not.

That is why I retreated from some of my earlier posts - we just do not know the details - nor should we feel entitled to know them.
Those are the business dealings between businessmen.

 

[Lee Saxon]

Excellent point Brian.

I really wish we knew more about all this. The complaint doesn't make much sense to me. I'm completely with Red on the patent claim but I think the trade dress claims are a stretch.

 

[Andy Jarosz]

See, that's where it gets confusing to me. It's not Red but Viewfactor whose idea has been stolen here.

I hate to be that guy, but this is true. ViewFactor came out with the top/bottom plate and ribs idea first. They put the R&D dollars and thought into it. Shortly after it's release, RED came out with their own near-identical version. The other manufacturers followed suit.

 

[Brian F Kobylarz]

I hate to be that guy, but this is true. ViewFactor came out with the top/bottom plate and ribs idea first. They put the R&D dollars and thought into it. Shortly after it's release, RED came out with their own near-identical version. The other manufacturers followed suit.

In one of the threads that was deleted, I provided a chronological list that had links back to each of Brook's posts when he announced products.

The last thread link was one from Jarred that announced the first of RED's DSMC rail product line.

About 7 months worth of time was represented - and yes, Jarred's was the last in that string.


Brook quoted the timeline / links I had assembled and referred people to those. In that one post, he also stated that he would not be joining the discussion.
(Really wish that post & thread had survived - but I am sure there are good reasons it is gone)


Hope that makes some of the references in my posts a bit more clear.

We have no idea of what agreements are in place between Brook, VF and RDC - nor is it any of our business. It is theirs.

[Reference statement in Post #45]

 

[Harry Stanton]

Gini are ripping off a series of people. Their follow-focus is a PHOTOCOPY (again) of Cinevate's (only from the reviews you find out it's made like crap).

Do you have Gini Follow focus, Rob? I used it on a shoot, and it was pretty impressive regardless of price. Its built solid. Its not "crap". Love to read those reviews like you say.

Sure, I agree. Copying someone's work is not cool but people need to remember is that not everyone can drop $1-5K on a follow focus so there is a need for low cost products to fill the gap. Some of these vendors in my opinion are gouging customers for their products. You need some kind of lower cost alternatives and Gini is providing that niche. I'm sorry to say that but its true. I believe strongly in made in USA, Canada & Europe. If possible, I buy those products but sometimes its not feasible given the money situation you have and need to get the job done.

I'm not defending Gini but 1-2K for a top plate, (2) ribs and bottom plate seems to be tad expensive for most especially Scarlet owners.

 

[Zack McTee]

Because a true pro:

1. Wouldn't want to be seen on set with low quality crap gear and

2. Because a true pro doesn't buy blatant ripoff gear from a company that has no respect for the law and other peoples trademarks.

I predict 'scarlet-epic.com' will be owned by RED in the very near future...

Mike

Because a true pro would never eat bottom shelf cereal or buy CVS brand headache-medicine over advil

 

[Patrick Grossien]

There's always a downside to all the good price. And I'm not talking about the worst case scenario: the inventor not creating new stuff any more because the products didn't produce sufficient income...

Every dollar not spent on the original inventors product prevents the original product from becoming cheaper, because the inventor is not selling enough of it. If more people would buy the RED gear they could offer these a bit cheaper. (Not saying they would, but that's just simple math) I understand you guys, because I'm also not in the situation to spend my money extensively on gear, but I still try to stick with original items. But I would say it doesn't matter from which country they come from. If they have a similar function and are cheaper, that's fine to buy, as long as these aren't illegal, unlicensed copies. Look at for example the edelkrone guys. Their products are relatively cheap but these are original products. So that's a good solution for many.

Also look at the prices gini is offering. The cheap one is noted as a "sale" price. The "regular" price is a lot higher. Seems to me that this is done to only get attention and then increase the price. But I see how this is tempting, because that price is just insane.

 

[Patrick Grossien]

Because a true pro would never eat bottom shelf cereal or buy CVS brand headache-medicine over advil

hehe

 

[Zack McTee]

Top and bottom plates can't vary that much, it's a retrofitted piece for the camera. Each of these is a little bit different from the other.

However, what you'll notice is that EVERYONE has different arms. How are these all blatant ripoffs of each other when they each chose a different design style for their arms? To be completely honest, I really like the arms of the gini as they're a little bulkier and have front mounting points.

The front mounting points are especially helpful if you want to mount your monitor on an arm in front of you. If you mount your monitor from the side mounts, you risk the possibility of the arm reverse threading from the weight of your monitor.

 

[Tim Morten]

Slightly more differentiated, but still worth noting:

Letus: http://www.letusdirect.com/cart/letus-red-non-powered-cage.html

Cinema Oxide: http://redmodz.com/cinema-oxide-cloud-cage-for-red-epic-scarlet/

Innocinema/Action Products offers top, bottom, and side plates, but doesn't show them as a cage: http://www.actionproducts.ch/

Berkey Systems offers top and bottom plates that are very similar: http://www.berkeysystem.com/store/red-accessories/

Cinecrew offers top and bottom plates that are also similar: http://www.cinecrew.net/camera-plates.html

3ality Technica top and bottom plates: http://elementtechnica.mybigcommerce.com/categories/RED-EPIC-Accessories/

RedRock micro and many other companies offer cages for non-Red cameras: http://store.redrockmicro.com/ultraCage-DSLR

 

[Zack McTee]

When it comes to shoulder rig, I spent a lot of time researching what would work well for me and weighing the positives and negatives of each option. In the end I decided that the WC shoulder rig was a really well thought out and well designed product that would give me the support I needed with excellent build quality and price that was reasonable.

I'm not worried about spending money on great products that fit all my needs, that can't be found elsewhere.

Buying the Gini cage sight-unseen is a risk. It's much cheaper than the competitors, but you're not sure what you'll receive and the guy is very hard to communicate with. With VF, RED, and WC you're paying more money for security and excellent customer service. That being said, I took the risk on the Gini cage and was initially worried by the communication problems via ebay (I wanted the black version, not grey and the dude's emails are impossible to understand). 5 days later my cage showed up in black...phew! Upon opening the box I was completely blown away by the build quality. I've worked with VF and WC cages and this build is equal in quality and strength. Beyond the price, I was really interested in the side arm design with the front mounting options. However, again I was a little bit worried that I was risking strength by them having mounting points on all sides of the rails. Once again I was pleasantly surprised. The arms have been extended on either side to add the girth necessary for the additional mounting holes.

One thing that is missing is an option for mounting rails. For this I made the decision to purchase the VF LW bracket (another product that is made by many manufactures but doesn't have an entire thread about copyright infringement). If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't buy the VF LW bracket as it's not compatible with other manufactures cages (it has a couple steel nobs that stick out to make it only fit their bottom plate...I had to saw these off and now it works perfectly). I'd go with WC or Element Technica instead.

I've used this cage on multiple shoots with ZERO problems. Gini cage, Wooden Camera shoulder rig, Viewfactor mounting bracket, Red Camera. Imagine that, all the companies playing very well together.

Buy what works for your needs and budget.

 

[Lee Saxon]

Sure, I agree. Copying someone's work is not cool but people need to remember is that not everyone can drop $1-5K on a follow focus so there is a need for low cost products to fill the gap.

Budgetary constraints don't justify intellectual property theft any more than they justify shoplifting food from the grocery store.

Of course we all agree there should be budget alternatives, but there is no justification for those alternatives being knock-offs.

Edelkrone and Redrock Micro, for example, produce affordable products based on original designs. It can be done.

Because a true pro would never eat bottom shelf cereal or buy CVS brand headache-medicine over advil

Not if CVS was stealing the formula and producing their generic illegally while Bayer's patent was still in effect.

 

[Lee Saxon]

However, what you'll notice is that EVERYONE has different arms. How are these all blatant ripoffs of each other when they each chose a different design style for their arms?

Firstly, I agree Red's is a different design. They shouldn't be in this debate, they shouldn't be including the cage in their WC suit, etc. The other three are the issue.

I agree the Gini arms are arguably a somewhat different functional design, but the WC & VF aren't. They're different cosmetic takes on identical functionality.

Okaying that would be saying the Chinese could exactly duplicate a Ford Explorer as long as they changed the grill.

 

[Mike Garrick]

I'm not a copyright lawyer but these changes do make these items different.

In regards to chinese making a ford explorer, yes they can as long as it is not an exact copy of the original & branded as Ford. Just because you invent something doesn't mean you own the "idea" & you can not patent/copyright an idea. So as shown above the Gini Ribs are different to all the others . They are entitled to sell their products as they see fit. Red, or others, are also entitled to sue their arse if they believe they have infringed design patents. This is called competition we mightn't like, it might appear unethical, it may rub some up the wrong way but it is the law.

P.S. Why isn't everyone bitch'n about all the different dovetail plate systems made by other manufacturers, surely they are copies of the original Arri design?

 

[Lee Saxon]

P.S. Why isn't everyone bitch'n about all the different dovetail plate systems made by other manufacturers, surely they are copies of the original Arri design?

Oh, I agree, that's worse than the cages. They all even seem to have the same red handle for the dovetail lock.

 

[Nils J. Nesse]

Yes, all the bridgeplate/dovetail systems out there look very similar. Are they rip-offs, or is it because they're expected to conform to a standard?

Looking at the Gini 19mm bridgeplate, it actually looks less samey, and more like a unique design than most "legitimate" bridgeplates...

I just broke down and ordered it. It was $199. With a free dovetail. But it sort of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Shoulda bought the Wooden Camera instead.

By the way, a few years ago there was a discussion on here about Ronford Baker ripping off Element Technica's EVF mount design. Those were the days. http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?23248-New-Ronford-Baker-EVF-Mount