There are heaps of products, both in audio and elsewhere, that copy much of another design.
At the extreme, a Chinese car manufacturer (Cherry I think from memory?) - built a car to blueprints stolen from Ford.... down to the error in the blueprint!
However, if you look at any product family - the same will be true.... someone comes out with a product - several people then issue their variation on the theme...
Some of those variations are very close - but IMO, as long as they do not try to pass them off as the other brand, and there are design efforts to improve the product (improvement might be changes that make it more economical... potentially degrading core performance) - then these are legitimate new products.
Sure, this appears closely derivative to the He6 - but no one is claiming that it is in fact a copy - there are performance differences ... and there are clearly construction differences too.
Perhaps a separate thread on the benefits and costs of Intellectual property protections, and where the lines should be drawn would be appropriate...?
I find it interesting, that China far more closely reflects the ideology of the libertarian free market in this sense, than America, the purported protector of free market principles, does. The role and value of intellectual property laws, and whether/how they are of value to society - and therefore where such "lines" should be drawn... is a topic of perpetual interest.
At the extreme, a Chinese car manufacturer (Cherry I think from memory?) - built a car to blueprints stolen from Ford.... down to the error in the blueprint!
However, if you look at any product family - the same will be true.... someone comes out with a product - several people then issue their variation on the theme...
Some of those variations are very close - but IMO, as long as they do not try to pass them off as the other brand, and there are design efforts to improve the product (improvement might be changes that make it more economical... potentially degrading core performance) - then these are legitimate new products.
Sure, this appears closely derivative to the He6 - but no one is claiming that it is in fact a copy - there are performance differences ... and there are clearly construction differences too.
Perhaps a separate thread on the benefits and costs of Intellectual property protections, and where the lines should be drawn would be appropriate...?
I find it interesting, that China far more closely reflects the ideology of the libertarian free market in this sense, than America, the purported protector of free market principles, does. The role and value of intellectual property laws, and whether/how they are of value to society - and therefore where such "lines" should be drawn... is a topic of perpetual interest.