Absolutely, companies like Tiffany and John Deere have the deep pockets to afford that kind of thing. I don’t even think I could afford the hourly retainer for one of their lawyers.
Unfortunately this is definitely the case - these businesses are unscrupulous in that way. Specifically for Cannonkeys, they probably need a way to manage their keycap manufacturer (not just their sales contact). I can bring in the example of Matt3o, Drop and their MT3 keycaps. These haven’t been affected by clones/knock-offs in Taobao. For as much flak as Drop gets, they are able to maintain a good grip of their keycap profile, designs and supply chain
Absolutely agree with these points! It’s a hard situation for the keycap designers, given the imbalance of powers (individual vs corporation). I think it also speaks about the design industry in general, it takes large R&D effort to create good design, but good design is easy to replicate
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This is interesting. If the same manufacturer manufactured the sets sold on Taobao, does that mean the difference in prices(In this case 50%) is what would have been paid to the designers?
I don’t want to see anyone getting ripped off as it distorts the proper incentive to design. But I am curious about how the current market value designer’s work? For each GMK set, how much are we paying to the designer?
50% was a rough estimate, this was a while ago and I don’t remember the exact prices. It was pretty significant though. IIRC, CK ended up claiming that the taobao price actually undercut what they had paid to get the sets produced in the first place. Really messy situation.
With that said, the margins on GMK sets aren’t exactly public but they aren’t exactly a secret either. They certainly don’t approach anywhere near doubling the cost from the factory.
Ok. In that case, CK is not just a designer, more like (matt3o + drop). And then have the keycaps made in China.