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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Innovation

C

Curt von Badinski

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I have been in product design for over 10 years and have put a great deal of time into honing my existing skills and gaining new ones. I like to think of myself as being an innovator and an artist. The process of making a product is something some people have no knowledge of and typically assume to be easy. A lot of the effort of developing a new product is coming up with the product idea and determining if there is actually a market for the product. There is a major expense in designing/building prototypes, reverse engineering interfaces with other products, testing, etc. Another expense is industrial design, ie does it look good and function the way it should.

I have seen some disturbing behavior in this industry over the past few years that I feel I need to point out. First off is the blatant copying that occurs on a daily basis. One company comes out with an innovative product then another copies it and sells it for half the price. There doesn't appear to be any ethics whatsoever. What makes me more upset than anything is when the customers support this behavior by buying those products. Be it knock-off Oakleys or iPhones it amazes me that people are willing to screw over the original innovators to save a buck. I think the best way to present this concept is as an analogy to what you guys do for a living... Movies.

Say you spent a year making an amazing film, it's your pride and joy. You labored through many nights developing the script, story boarding, spent weeks scouting, and casting. You laid out your hard earned money for every aspect of production. You shot the movie, got through post production and finally have something that you can market and sell. You manage to get your movie on a DVD then start selling it on your website. Life is good . Now imagine that you start getting cancellation emails and dont know why. You get people complaining that your $19 DVD is priced too high.... After all the other website has it for half the price... Wait, What? Yes, some other guy thought it would be cool to just rip the DVD and sell it for 1/2 of your price. After all, it's much easier to just copy then go through the arduous task of innovating.

I wonder what's going to happen when the innovators leave and innovation is left to those that can only copy.
 
I don't think that changed all that much over the years- you are just feeling the pinch yourself now so it's personal... back in the '60s there were the Japanese transistor radios...(I'm not that old but my dad is a retired electronic engineer of 40 years that's how I know)
I think it might help if you are more specific as for what you feel was your original idea that got ripped off...
 
You act like this is a recent trend...

The Wheel
Fire
Swords
Farming
Boats
Currency
Cars
Phones
Computers


At one time, there was only ONE of all of these things. Where do you think the rest came from?

As for the new WC Top Plate, I wouldn't call that a blatant ripoff. It has different functionality/features that the other doesn't. Yes it's similar, but so is every other smart phone ever manufactured after 2007. With innovation comes ripoffs and copiers, but also refinement of an idea or concept.


Curt von Badinski said:
people are willing to screw over the original innovators to save a buck.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but saving money is worth more to any consumer than hurting someone's feelings. And when I'm buying a Samsung Galaxy Tab, I'm not sitting there thinking, "HA! Steve Jobs can suck it!"
 
It is true the two plates look similar but it is due more to the fact that the Epic brain is shaped a certain way and the fact that hole spacings need to be standardized. The center to center distance of holes dictates where holes can go and where they cannot. Add to that a wireless antenna and heatsink and you've got very limited real estate. As for pricing, we have a formula for calculating all of our accessory msrp's. Sometimes the result is surprising.
 
Sorry Ryan. Didn't mean for that to sound like an accusation. There are a lot of accessories coming out from several vendors (Viewfactor, Wooden Camera, Action Products, Allstar, Element Technica, etc.) with many similarities between them. But your explanation makes perfect sense to me.
 
The Human Species is still using the same tried and true design from One Million years ago. Banks stated today that they will start charging for Debit Card use. Thieves are everywhere. A thief has to eat just as much as a Genius. Don't you carry a concealed weapon?
 
If you can not patent your idea then it will get ripped off because there is nothing unique enough about it to protect the design legally.

If you insist on designing and prototyping things that can not be patented then you have to compete on many levels:

Design
Service
Price
Quality
Warranty
Etc.

You can't patent a rosette or a rod or how they go together. The cost of the patent process has to not outweigh the profit you can make.

Anyone who has filed a patent knows that many of the parts we see for cinema cameras, or to attach things to cinema cameras simple can not be patented or don't warrant the sakes numbers to proted with a patent.

I appreciate what it means to have ideas ripped off. Who does not?

But really unless you have invented something that no one else can do, it's just a big risky business. A billion people are ready to leach good design, but that can't mean stop designing. Just refine your model.

David.
 
but Ketch that means we would all be stuck with only Ipads and iphones with no other options.... :cryin: with no competition and very slow improvements.... (the way Apple would want it!) :hand:
 
Maz Mawlawi said:
but Ketch that means we would all be stuck with only Ipads and iphones with no other options.... :cryin: with no competition and very slow improvements.... (the way Apple would want it!) :hand:
Click to expand...

Quite the opposite... ;)

What I want to see is various options, not just an other IDENTICAL iPAD or iPhone Copy like... ;)

To each their own, to each their place... ;)
 
A few months back BEFORE the FMJ came out I sat down with a friend and we came up with a design for a top plate. The only thing missing was some key measurements from RED. Well they would not give them to me because of some reason. But the plate we designed looks very similar. I have to agree with Ryan on this one. The top and bottom of the camera give very few options for "individuality". The reason I didn't follow through with my plate was strictly due to the measurement problem. I don't think there is any ripping off here. And FWIW i appreciate the options of choosing.
 
Ripping off is a strong word Dave, I would never use such a word my self, unless some one was clearly ripped off, I don't see it as this is the case in particular with in question of Ryan's top X plate...

However I wil not move away from my clear point that if in my place I could not make something original I would prefer not to make it, as it would seem as I am copying some one else's design, period!!

It almost now sounds as I'm against Ryan... I AM NOT!!

Just I would have preferred not seen this top plate coming from him been so close (too close) in design as an other respected RED member such as Brook,
which I know how much time and efforts has put in to the designing of it, that is all.

Now, following RED's great examples, Brook is even giving free upgrades to those like myself that purchased the plate before the final changes that EPIC-X now went thru, and that al our EPIC M cameras will go thru,
so yeah in a way I do see it as a low blow to his work, but not a Rip off, that is a too strong of a word I would not use against Ryan, which I also respect as a person, a friend which welcomed me inn his home in Texas during the Epic AMerican Tour with Joseph, and also as a RED member and contributor.
 
There is also the issue of maybe having to ship internationally and pay customs duty - if I can get a functionally equivalent piece of kit in Europe, that is not an illegal copy, why woudn't I consider it?

I'm certainly not a fan of capitalism as a panacea, but it's the only system we currently have to work with unfortunately.
Economic realities may mean saving literally every penny at the moment - not all of us have deep enough pockets to be too picky, even if we'd prefer to.
 
I don't see what the issue is. We all have a choice here. We can give our money to company X or company Y. I like what Wooden Camera is doing. They're constantly working, making improvements and most importantly, they deliver on time and quickly. Also their plate is quite different from Viewfactors. For one, no laser etching or cool 'Warning Jet Blast' logos. Also, no ability to remove the center piece so less options for mounting points. The thing I like most about the Wooden plate are the extra mounting points and of course, lower price. How can a cheeseplate be original? It has one function and only so many ways to get there
 
KETCH ROSSi said:
Ripping off is a strong word Dave, I would never use such a word my self, unless some one was clearly ripped off, I don't see it as this is the case in particular with in question of Ryan's top X plate...

However I wil not move away from my clear point that if in my place I could not make something original I would prefer not to make it, as it would seem as I am copying some one else's design, period!!

It almost now sounds as I'm against Ryan... I AM NOT!!

Just I would have preferred not seen this top plate coming from him been so close (too close) in design as an other respected RED member such as Brook,
which I know how much time and efforts has put in to the designing of it, that is all.

Now, following RED's great examples, Brook is even giving free upgrades to those like myself that purchased the plate before the final changes that EPIC-X now went thru, and that al our EPIC M cameras will go thru,
so yeah in a way I do see it as a low blow to his work, but not a Rip off, that is a too strong of a word I would not use against Ryan, which I also respect as a person, a friend which welcomed me inn his home in Texas during the Epic AMerican Tour with Joseph, and also as a RED member and contributor.
Click to expand...


Ketch,

I'm not implying that is what you meant. I didn't get the feeling you were saying Ryan "ripped off" the FMJ design. But that seems to be the theme of this thread with out pointing specifically to wooden camera. I was only saying that with limited space and shape, plates will look similar in design. As was the point of my story about my design. Had I followed through, there would be 3 similar top plates.

I agree that Brook is a stand up and top notch guy. Also that he is being extremely generous by following RED's example and trading, for free, the M plates for X plates.

I don't know Ryan, although from the emails we have exchanged he seems like a stand up guy too.

You and I have had a few conversations and I respect you tremendously. I also respect your opinion on things. On this issue I just have a difference of opinion and mean no disrespect to you, Brook, Curt or any others.
 
Rick Darge said:
How can a cheeseplate be original? It has one function and only so many ways to get there
Click to expand...

I agree with Rick on this one.

Allstar and ET copied Arri's dovetail plate - a bunch of holes in the same shaped metal with a quick-release system - and sold it for a cheaper price - and there wasn't a whisper about ripping off the design, only gratitude that it was available for less - I'm not clear how this situation is different, though I'm willing to be educated...

a cheeseplate is a cheeseplate is a cheeseplate, and these are both cheeseplates that conform to RED's shape - how is that original?- RED's design determined the shape and the size and spacing of the holes....

now if Wooden Camera had copied the entire FMJ system, that would be another thing entirely - but isn't it obvious that some of the components are going to be the same? there are only so many ways you can build a riser/rail mount...or a cheeseplate.
 
Thanks Dave, I respect you just the same... ;)

This is not a manner of Original or not, but it is a manner of a design that simply is just too close to an other existing design, os much so for a moment I tough Brook had gone Wooden camera on us and dropped VF... ;)

A cheese plate can also be original, as was Brook that first designed the Top plate carefully following the lines of the Epic, and not just making a Cheese Plate a la ET, for the Red ONe with strait lines and no particular lines followed to take in and follow to the exact mm the lines of EPIC.


Any way, I wanted to make my point and I did, Ryan is a stand up guy, and understood were I am coming form, He is a designer, so is Brook, and in truth so am I, just don't have anything out yet he he, but I will,
and it would upset me a bit to find an other designer manufacturer come out with an exact copy of what It tucked me almost a year to design.... but thanks God for Patents... ;)
 
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