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Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

Yet Sherman estimates that he has lost “hundreds of thousands” of dollars in potential revenue due to copycats.

Just like piracy, it doesn't work that way. Far more people are willing to pay $10 for a selfie-stick phone case than $50.

Alternatively, I've also seen a lot of Kickstarters which were simply "marketing" for an existing yet not-so-well-known product available from Alibaba, with a substantial markup added. This means there is already significant "innovation" happening in China, contrary to what a lot of people think --- they just haven't seen the true scale of what manufacturing in China looks like.

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Yes, there are more people willing to pay $10 than people willing to pay $50. But, how many people willing to pay $50 would prefer to pay $10 and will switch once the option arises?

Doesn't matter. The economy should ultimately favor the buyer, not the seller.

I disagree. The whole point of IP laws is that they provide a monetary incentive to innovate.

If someone decides to take some time off to invent a new device and incur a financial risk to bring it to market, they should have the opportunity to profit from it. If new inventions are cloned within weeks in Asia and undercut the original inventor, where's the incentive to take risks on novel inventions?

If the invention was trivial, why didn't the Chinese manufacturers come up with it in the first place?

Why are you assuming that kickstarter projects would have any IP? It seems that a very low percentage of kickstarter projects would own IP on their devices considering the amount of time and cost involved in just applying for a patent.

If no one owns a patent that covers the design then manufacturing a bunch of "copies" for a much lower price isn't illegal. It makes sense that kickstarter would be targeted as a source of not patented ideas to use.

"The whole point of IP laws is that they provide a monetary incentive to innovate."

Likewise, then the innovator has more money/resources to continue. A good example of this leading to exponentially growing success and greater scale innovations of inventors/entrepreneurs re-cycling their profits is Elon Musk's path.

Lots of people, specially Chinese. They can spend 1000$ for the real thing because they know it is real.

They go to Europe or US to buy original products, not selfies sticks of course, because if the stick does not work that well is not important. But they buy medicines, they buy iphones, they even buy cars.

If someone believe that something as easy to replicate like a stick should make him extremely rich, then he is going to have to face reality.

"If someone believe that something as easy to replicate like a stick should make him extremely rich, then he is going to have to face reality."

Tell that to those who recycled 3rd grade, sometimes even used, ball bearings to build and sell a shitload of fidget spinners just a few years ago. We can't know how much people is willing to spend on a product if it hits the right string in their brains.

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