[breadAndWater]

Instead of counterfeiting, and operating beyond the boundaries of well understood legalities, while deceiving users, and engaging in sketchy malicious software practices, what if they were more well behaved?

What if they didn't create an obvious attempt to create a direct knock-off of the latest iPhone? What if they created a comparable device to stand on its own? What if they clearly labeled everything that the phone was really doing? What if they weren't scraping every interaction he user has with the device?

What if they took all of that deceptive effort, and poured it into producing a device that could be trusted, and took all of those efforts to deceive, and instead poured that creativity into improving the fundamental device they wished to create?

What if they made something they could put their names on, without inviting all the consequences that their dubious behavior would surely result in, if we knew who was behind this sort of thing?

What if they could admit to what they were doing, because it sought to benefit their patrons, instead of posing obvious risks to anybody spending $100 on their stuff?

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Legalities may be dependent on the country of origin and honestly, most of the engineers may not even be aware that they're deceiving anyone, just trying to copy a device at low cost.

Most businesses do something that's identical to work done elsewhere. Many, many, many companies exist whose main line of business is to take a successful product and clone it cheaply for a market that can't afford the "authentic, professional" version. That is a perfectly normal, legitimate business.

I'm willing to bet that most of the engineers who did this phone never thought they were doing anything wrong. In fact, the "information should be free" arguments that many posters use on this site could be used to justify exactly the production of this phone!

IP protection gets interesting when it protects something you actually care about...

[kalleboo]

Then they would have just another generic Android phone in a sea of generic Android phones

[gsanghera]

What if they had access to the IP that is currently locked away by the likes of Apple/Google? What if anyone who wanted to replicate a good design (and improve upon it) were able to do so without restrictions, or fear of lawsuits? Conversely, what if what we treat as the sacrosanct right to make profits over a one-time invention (as if noone else could ever come up with a similar idea on their own - while history has repeatedly shown otherwise) was applied throughout history? Would even railways / electricity / simple things we take for granted now - have been so widespread? Maybe we would be flying in counterfeit airplanes.

[atr2]

>What if they had access to the IP that is currently locked away by the likes of Apple/Google? What if anyone who wanted to replicate a good design (and improve upon it) were able to do so without restrictions, or fear of lawsuits?

Then nobody would invest any money in releasing stuff and we would still live in the stone age.

[_Microft]

Here's an interesting article about 19th century Germany when no copyright laws existed yet:

The Real Reason for Germany's Industrial Expansion?

Did Germany experience rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century due to an absence of copyright law? A German historian argues that the massive proliferation of books, and thus knowledge, laid the foundation for the country's industrial might.

Found at http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright-l...

[TomMarius]

Or maybe they'd move to offering services, like with software?

[TomMarius]

Pretty much everyone is doing that, I think it makes sense to find a niche. Not that I support this one.