Knock Off Artists

Knocking off another product line is an ancient practice, and Norman Lear has collected a yeoman group to compare the phenomenon in both fashion and music...

learcenter.org/pdf/RTSSinnreichGluck.pdf

(Note: the link goes straight to a .pdf download)

Lear’s group is anti-”intellectual property law” as any sensible person should be.  I would like to add some real world experience to the above academic review.  

The principle is “the who does the work ought to earn the money.”

Never mind that any idea is the result of all ideas that went before, and let’s just look at what is involved once one commits to investing time, talent and treasure in knocking off a design.

First the knock-off artist must believe there is a market.  The market is likely second rate in some way, discount stores, an owned chain, or some sort of assured selling method.  There are also the utterly delusional folks who believe that if they can just get the goods, they can make a killing selling.    These people are always wrong, because there is no such market.  These people could easily test their hypothesis by simply asking those they anticipate would buy if in fact they would buy.  But none take this step, many regret their original enthusiasm.  

(There is also the danger that such target market would encourage the neophyte knocker-off, with a view that when the goods actually arrived, to then decline to buy.  In distress, the knocker-off would be obliged to cut price, to the delight of the target customer.)

Let say the design is for a woman’s coat. First you must find a pattern maker who will charge a minimum of $500 to reverse-engineer the coat at the design spec-level. A factory needs explicit  and precise instructions as to every element (fabric, cut, size range, thread, stitch, buttons, etc...) in order to fill your order. The pattern maker can do that easily (and in fashion there is no IPR so no one cares if you are doing that....);  but you'll need to spec the fabric, even if it is "same as sample." It may take the pattern maker time and money to figure out what that fabric happens to be, but the pattern maker will do all of that, so you'll get exactly what you are looking for.

Excellent designers demand to be paid on a royalty basis because the more it sells the more they make, whereas the knocker-off has to pay up front for the patterns.  

Then you want to find the best factory to make your goods, likely overseas.  The first rate factories are the busiest, and are likely to decline a request to work for a knock-off artist since there is better business, longer term business working with the best USA designers.

There are plenty of reputable, honest second rate factories, but you get second rate work.  The knocker-off is most interested in cheapest price, so the expertise in cutting as many corners as possible and yet still arriving at “coat” is valued by the knocker-off.  The target customer in USA understands this.

In any event, the pattern makers specs need to be integrated into an order to the factory.   This part of the business is as complicated as hand surgery, but the factory is happy to assist you here.  Yet even with assistance, as one makes decisions, the inexperienced are at a loss to anticipate the results of the decisions, good or bad.  The Factory just needs a decision, and does not care abut the results, since the knocker-off is unlikely to economically survive the experience anyway. 

Here is a link to an expose of a sweatshop, of no particular interest, except for the fact they have some purchase orders docs that may be enlightening...

http://www.globallabourrights.org/reports?id=0639

(scroll down to see the purchase order...)  You will be obliged to achieve that level of complexity in writing an order.

So say all goes well, and time and treasure is now sunk in made up goods, then comes the reality of the challenges.  You will be up against all along the process the awareness that your project is as it is...  although you can have professional services all along, everyone will see this as a one shot deal and treat it accordingly.  The knocker-offs are making these fundamental errors.

1.  Underestimating the originators ability to respond to your entry into the market.

2. Overestimating your target market's willingness to work with you instead of the originator, due to lower price.

3. Overestimating the margins available if you do this (or underestimating cost, or overestimating sell price, or something in the costings somewhere...)  Are you well versed in "markdown dollars" and ad allowances, and other rag trade practices?  Cherry growers are happy to lose money for 6 years because they usually a seventh year makes it all worthwhile.  The rag trade is not that different.  The joke “the way to make a small fortune in this business is to start with a large fortune” originated in the rag trade.

4. You are underestimating your capacity to come up with something far better than this project.

So the idea that knock-off artists have it easy or should be somehow curtailed is obtuse.  They risk much in a very uphill battle.  They are likely to lose, and in any event, they do everything an originator must do, except draw some pictures, like in second grade.

The above is true for all industries and all knock-off activity.  The most important point is #4.  Although there is absolutely nothing wrong with knocking off other people in any moral or economic sense, the activity crowds out the time the knocker-off would be providing a genuine value in the marketplace.  They do 99% of the work, they should do the 1% more.

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