Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/07/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Marc James Small wrote: > At 12:11 PM 7/30/1999 -0400, Dan Post wrote: > > > >Man is an innovator and an adaptor; we may not condone it, and we may even > >eschew it, but it is a fact of life, and human nature. I am sure that > >whosoever builds a better mousetrap, is going to anger the original builder > >of the mousetrap for 'stealing' the idea. > > WRONG, Dan, WRONG: the buzzer goes off and you, shame-faced, slink to the > back of the class. > > What Voigtlander did to Petzval or what Nikon and Canon did to Zeiss and > Zeiss Ikon and Leitz was not a case of improving on an existing product. > It was a straight theft. No improvement. No further research. Just a > direct copy. > > Again, put this in line of a professional photographer's copyright to his > work. If someone prints one of this professional's pictures and sells it, > then he or she has committed a copyright violation and owes Big Bucks for > the infringement. Well, that is precisely what I am speaking of. > > Yes, Canon and Nikon DID go on to do their own design work, just as > Voigtlander did, but this came later in all three cases. The success of > all three companies was based on raw and rotten thievery and I can no more > condone this than I could the theft of one of Ted's pictures. > > Marc > Marc, You are correct in what you say about those 3 companies . The way to prosper is to use other peoples - paid for - knowledge. There is another company in very recent times, which copied stole and thieved blatantly, like never experienced before. Not a Japanese company this time. It was an American company. It was Microsoft, with Bill Gates < the richest thief in the world >. They stooped so low in the beginning. They stole various software products from shareware programs and also from other small companies. There where quite a few court cases about this. Now Bill Gates is the big shot, who is invited to give speeches at seminars, to tell the world how to get rich too. However there is never any mention of blatant thievery. Its always about looking ahead and being enterprising. I suppose he, Marcos, Suharoto and similar types looked ahed while stealing from others. Regards, Horst Schmidt