Originally Posted by
atombikes
Who cares?
i do. and so should any other person who buys a dahon or any other brand of bicycle that is routinely counterfeited as the purchaser is, in effect, subsidizing that company's legal fees when those expenses get rolled into the purchase price. dahon has now had to hire a full-time staff to combat this problem. i, like most people am willing to pay for innovative products, however, i'm not at all happy to pay to fight piracy.
Originally Posted by
atombikes
It's built by a large manufacturer and distributed by the worlds largest retailer; so if Dahon cares enough and thinks they can prove the product is a counterfeit then they should go after them. The reality is there are probably enough differences between the two to make a claim against the product unfounded.
the large manufacturer you mention, kent, probably doesn't actually build this bike. more than likely, as folding bikes are not part of their standard line-up, they sub-contract this (and i'm sure many other frames) to third party makers, who possibly sub it out again to a fourth supplier. there are known connections between these types of knock-off, quick money businesses and much more egregious organized criminal activities like money laundering, drugs, and even human trafficking.
the reality is that dahon has already successfully had counterfeit bikes removed from walmart in china which is impressive considering the chinese government's extremely lax attitude about counterfeits and piracy (an estimated 12% of china's gdp comes from the manufacture and sale of fake products). reportedly, and i believe it, the problem is so pervasive that even with a full-time staff devoted to the problem, dahon still can't keep up with all the fakes.
i care about this because i love cycling and i love design. i understand what it takes to develop an innovative product and bring it to market- it's not easy, and when i see others do it successfully, i respect it. this genesis folding bike, among many others, is emblematic of the dark underbelly of commerce in general, where chancers and opportunistic thieves capitalize on the efforts of others to make a quick buck flipping products of effectively dubious origin, often made of unknown or untested or under-spec'd materials.
frankly, none of the above really even scratches the surface on the scope and scale of the actual problem or the costs paid by society at large related to this issue. the ramifications are wide-ranging. "
the high price of low cost", indeed.
links:
DAHON Bikes:*News
https://thecounterfeitreport.com/pro...ing-Bikes.html
Buy a fake, risk death, support slavery ? says bike industry | road.cc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV_bDXgeg7Q