Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Counterfeit Apple Stores Pop Up In China

Zubba said:
It's wrong in every way. Since you obviously can't understand the concept of why that is, I'll explain in as simple a terms as can be mustered. The idea of intellectual property has been the foundation that provides us with the impetus to develop new technologies and advancements. If a business can't reap the rewards of its research, there is less of an incentive to develop anything new. The system has been the reason why we've seen an explosion of discoveries and innovations over the last two hundred years.

Before you go off and espouse some sort of moral high ground with a love for Chinese culture, consider the fact that nearly all the significant innovations of the modern world have been developed in the west, under cultures that value the idea of intellectual property.

China's great contribution to modern man has been cheap labor and a new twist on totalitarianism. Here's hoping they can learn to appreciate the value of intellectual property, and actually contribute to the spirit of innovation instead of being limited to the reproduction of the ideas of another.
Click to expand...

The truth is rather that we've seen innovation DESPITE "intellectual property" laws.

How can someone OWN an idea? If you've applied today's IP laws backwards, someone would now own a patent for the wheel and a monk would own the cyrillic alphabet - and could charge the Russian population for license fees because of their daily copyright infringement.

The entire IP system is ridiculous. And just in case that you don't know where it comes from: It was invented for people who owned book printing businesses. Repeat: To protect the interest of people who owned the PRINTING business, NOT the author of the book!

IP laws are not designed to foster innovation, they are designed to restrict others from using someone else's IP.

The system gets totally absurd when it comes to software patents, and it's a good thing that this is mostly an American problem and has not yet spread to Europe. In fact, as you could read a couple of days ago on the web, several European software developers have removed their products from Apple's US App Store because of the legal issues they might face because of your patent system that easily allows for trivial patents. Those developers think that even though they would eventually win in case of a lawsuit, the costs are prohibitive and it would not make any economic sense to still do business in the US.

Some much for the "value" of the idea of IP. Copyrights might be a necessary evil, but current laws have gone far beyond what is necessary and healthy and are just hurting progress and business.
 
Do they have the fake version of the latest MBA running Lion as well?
Do they accept counterfeit bills or credit cards?
 
Winni said:
The truth is rather that we've seen innovation DESPITE "intellectual property" laws.

How can someone OWN an idea? If you've applied today's IP laws backwards, someone would now own a patent for the wheel and a monk would own the cyrillic alphabet - and could charge the Russian population for license fees because of their daily copyright infringement.

The entire IP system is ridiculous. And just in case that you don't know where it comes from: It was invented for people who owned book printing businesses. Repeat: To protect the interest of people who owned the PRINTING business, NOT the author of the book!

IP laws are not designed to foster innovation, they are designed to restrict others from using someone else's IP.

The system gets totally absurd when it comes to software patents, and it's a good thing that this is mostly an American problem and has not yet spread to Europe. In fact, as you could read a couple of days ago on the web, several European software developers have removed their products from Apple's US App Store because of the legal issues they might face because of your patent system that easily allows for trivial patents. Those developers think that even though they would eventually win in case of a lawsuit, the costs are prohibitive and it would not make any economic sense to still do business in the US.

Some much for the "value" of the idea of IP. Copyrights might be a necessary evil, but current laws have gone far beyond what is necessary and healthy and are just hurting progress and business.
Click to expand...


The laws may be a "modern" invention, although they've existed in this country since its inception over two centuries ago, but the concept exsited long before, even in Europe.

You're right about the printing business. Guttenberg himself invented the modern printing press to make money. He protected his investment by keeping the process strictly confidential, licensing the technology and binding those franchisees to strict confidentiality agreements. Not too disimilar than today's system.

So the concept of invention and progress in order to get rich is quite old. And quite European.
 
skbt said:
Here's some shots from a fake apple store in Xian, China. I visited this one in May.

http://imgur.com/a/xGgdw#0ZL04

They also had a 'no pictures' policy, but I just pretended I was playing with my iphone.
Click to expand...
From your photo outside it appears that they didn't tilt the leaf on the logo properly.

fake-apple-store.jpg​
 
Thats a killer PWND observation, haha, yeah..if Apple made a mistake like that then I'd expect them to go out of business soon (because they're perfectionists).


Lol, nice try China :rolleyes:
 
alphaod said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

All Apple needs to do is take ownership, add some iPad displays, and change the sign to a silver background.

Isn't that great? No cost of construction, furnishing, hiring. All paid for.
Click to expand...

Yeah!

To truly be Apple store, need to do some work, but it looks like 3/4 of the effort is already done.

The thing is, when you have such motivated people one does best to make them legit, not shut them down.
 
Adidas Addict said:
None of you will be slagging off China in a few years once you're forced to wear this outfit :p
Click to expand...

Nobody has been forced to wear those outfits since the 1970s, about the same time the U.S. was forcing people to wear uniforms and go kill people in Asia. Perhaps he would look cooler in designer jeans and a black turtleneck, but he isn't trying to impress shallow women or trendy gay lads…. That you would exhibit his choice of clothes helps prove my point about western vanity.
 
With this forum's attitude no wonder...

I can't believe the smugness of some of the people in this room, let alone that of 'Apple Store employees'. No wonder China is accelerating away under the west's noses. Don't believe the hype you read in the papers, China, although it has it's problems, has amazing and very credible unauthorised Apple stores along with a wide spectrum of retailers we'd be proud to have in our high streets.

Those who have made such condescending comments should be ashamed, can you imagine what an Chinaman would think coming in here to read this article would think... Besides, with corrupt police and town councils taking over US towns and illegal Hacking going on throughout the establishment and governments of countries, the west's records aren't that clean...

Let's for goodness sake think global Mac community :)
 
Why are people up in arms? It seems they are selling actual Apple products not fakes.

A local Apple dealer here in the UK has clearly made itself look a lot more like a clean, minimalist Apple Store and use the Apple logo. I don't think many would assume it's an Apple Store but the Chinese here have only gone a tiny bit further.

This could just be a Chinese Apple dealer going for perfectionism.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back