Has anybody seen this Mcdermott Cue before?

[Poo1h0Lic]

LOL!

Heres an old McDermott. Starting bid 1 Dollar!!!


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mcdermott-P...590?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c735fd9fe

 

[macguy]

Ok, I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants an answer to this question:

Why aren't you bothered by knockoffs?

I'm as cheap as anyone and way cheaper than most, especially considering my income level, but even I would find knowingly buying reproductions of products which illegally represent themselves as the real thing off limits if I could help it. If the product is worth buying why not demand that the manufacturer make a profit off their own efforts and not at the expense of another person's or company's efforts to establish it's own reputation and quality standards?

Whether it's a solo worker, or a company, workers and owner's generally have to earn (and deserve) the wages they get for their own efforts. Why contribute to someone else sucking off the lifeblood of another person's or persons' lifelong efforts?

I remember one year being at the BCA show and they had knock off's all over the place. Right down the way from McDermott and Meucci were over seas sellers with exact copies of their cues.

 

[Cdryden]

There is no possible way that "China" can put a stop to counterfeits and knockoffs. In the case of McDermott there is actually no protection available to them because they do not own the trademark for McDermott in China.

By the same token you could start a cue manufacturing company in the USA and use the brand name of a Chinese domestic brand and there would be nothing that brand could do to stop you.

And since designs on cues are not copyrightable anyway you could use all their designs as well.

It's helpful to understand that even today in the USA there are sweatshops which produce counterfeit goods. They are very underground but they exist. As long as you have a world where a brand has value then you will have people counterfeiting those brands.

Take a country with 1.5 billion people and 5000 years of culture that rewards deep relationships and corrupt power structures and you have a situation where the way things work on the street is far more than the government can possibly change. The only way to eradicate countereiting and brand "theft" would be to A. make every brand in the world registered with the United Nations and B. have a world police force that is tasked only with investigating and prosecuting infringers.

But understand that infringement of brands is a relatively low level crime in most countries. So even when millions of dollars are involved it's not really high priority for the police to protect the brands and profits of private industry. Add to that the fact that the counterfeiters pay the police and local governments more....

A person frankly would get more jail time for stealing your tv than if they stole your brand.

And "C" don't buy it. I chose C.

 

[Johnnyt]

My problem isn't so much with companies in China that produce a viable stand alone product, it is with the countries unscrupulous business practices that only serve to line their pockets and cripple our industry.
Obviously China can make fine products, no argument there, but until the Chinese government puts a stop to this I will continue to try and avoid buying their countries products.

You want to boycott China knock-offs/copy's, and the unfair cheap labor that sweats to make it...vote out the president and his party in congress that made the deal with China. Johnnyt

 

[JB Cases]

And "C" don't buy it. I chose C.

Good luck with that. You can't avoid buying Chinese made products. Like it or not America and China are deeply linked on levels that go way beyond simple consumer products.

And if china disappeared from the earth tomorrow knockoffs would still be made elsewhere. In fact knockoffs are currently made all over the world.

 

[JB Cases]

You want to boycott China knock-offs/copy's, and the unfair cheap labor that sweats to make it...vote out the president and his party in congress that made the deal with China. Johnnyt

What deal was that? If anything Obama and Democrats are more likely to enact policies that are more in favor of American based business and labor.

 

[JB Cases]

I remember one year being at the BCA show and they had knock off's all over the place. Right down the way from McDermott and Meucci were over seas sellers with exact copies of their cues.

Because the BCA is more interested in selling booth space than protecting the industry. So one year, 2004 I think in Houston, they sold a mega-block of booths, 50 booths to a Chinese trade show company. That company in turn sold the spaces to their Chinese customers, smaller factories and trade agents who normally would not come to the BCA expo with their own booth. They simply sent products and the organizer set them up in the space and put out the brochures and the staff was minimal and had just about zero knowledge of the product or the industry.

So I am browsing this monstrosity and noticing the crap and knockoffs and right at the front entrance to the area I see something really ironic.

There is a display of books and the topmost book for sale is a BCA Rulebook. So I pick it up and it's a bad copy of the BCA rulebook. Typos and chinglish abound.

I thought this is fitting. Anyway I mentioned it to someone at the BCA that I thought it was a perfect example of how little the BCA cared about the "American" part of their mission and surprisingly that little rule book knockoff was gone the next day. I should have taken a picture.