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Because that's immoral.

You can get a non-replica Chinese watch.

Unless you try to sell the watch as real, why would it be immoral?

Tricking people into buying fake watches is their business model, and it's a violation of copyright and trademark.

>Tricking people into buying fake watches is their business model

You know nothing about the business and are just coming up with things

>and it’s a violation of copyright and trademark

I’m not sure that this would make it immoral, and how does this affect the customer anyway? As far as immoral things businesses do this one seems extraordinarily mild, hardly any cause for boycott.

I rather doubt this has anything to do with morals.

It's a fact that when buying watches, you have to watch out for fakes, because people pass fake watches off as the real thing.

> I’m not sure that this would make it immoral, and how does this affect the buyer anyway?

It doesn't just affect the buyer. It affects the company being faked.

And it's illegal, so you're helping a criminal enterprise.

>It's a fact that when buying watches, you have to watch out for fakes, because people pass fake watches off as the real thing.

Sure, but I don't think that this makes manufacturing, buying, or selling fakes immoral. Most fake watches are sold to people who know that they're buying a fake watch.

>It affects the company being faked.

I don't believe you. Rolex isn't losing any sales because of fakes.

>And it's illegal, so you're helping a criminal enterprise.

This hardly seems like a real argument. There are many places where it's criminal to get high or be gay.

Pristina 2697 days ago

They don't 'trick' people in buying 'fake' watches. Great replica makers don't have to trick anybody, they offer a watch that look almost exactly like the original for 1/10th the price or less.

Being illegal does not make it immoral.

paradoxparalax 2697 days ago

Because a clone is criminal. As long as I know. And is not only against the law, It is morally theft,

some people spent A Lot of money in design for some malicious smartass chinese guy to come and copy and sell by 10 times cheaper....This is Absurd. Some people are loosing their jobs , see , maybe me myself, i am loosing a job because of Falsification...

Besides, Is not really necessary, Come one, people should come out with their Own watch design right?

It should be not so hard to draw a sketch with a New design, right? Its not like painting the Davinci's Monalisa, right...

At least my opinion, like they say in the Good Wife Series.

mikekchar 2697 days ago

> Because a clone is criminal. As long as I know. And is not only against the law, It is morally theft,

I just want to respond to this because we see a lot of the same comments in the software industry and I think it dilutes the meaning of the law to speak imprecisely.

If you make a watch and put a brand name on it for which you have no license, that is a trade mark infringement. It is illegal in most countries. It is not theft. Theft is where you take something that belongs to someone else, thereby depriving them of it. Infringement is where you use something that belongs to someone else, often without depriving them of it. They are different things, both legally and morally.

There are design patents, and I suspect that there are probably design patents for watches (although I've never looked). If you copy a design that is patented for which you have no license, you are infringing the patent. This is illegal in most parts of the world (but probably different parts of the world than trademark infringement). It is also infringement, not theft.

Fashion designs can not by copyrighted under most (all?) international treaties. If you make a watch that looks similar to another watch, but that does not infringe the trademark, nor infringe any design patents, then you are not infringing at all. It is neither illegal, nor immoral (IMHO anyway) to do this. However, it may be fraud if you try to pass it off as something it is not, which is illegal, of course.

Karl Lagerfeld, the famous designer had an interesting comment about look-a-like copies. When prompted in an interview (unfortunately I can't remember which programme it was on) for his opinion about people who buy knock bags he replied something to the effect of, "Those people are not my customers. None of my customers would buy those bags. Neither would customers who are happy with a knock off bag want to buy my bags. It makes no difference to me". As much as I realise that not everybody will have such an expansive point of view, I've always thought it to be an incredibly wise position to take in the fashion industry.

https://www.ft.com/content/1625afaa-925c-11e3-8018-00144feab...

Note that trademark infringement can in some cases include the design of the watch (as tested in court with the AP Royal Oak):

Pristina 2697 days ago

If some 'smartass chinese' guy can provide the same thing for 1/10th the price, then clearly the original maker is overcharging.

twblalock 2697 days ago

It's easy to make cheap stuff when somebody else invested in the R&D and you just steal their designs.

coldtea 2697 days ago

LOL. The R&D is an insignificant part of the cost. The margins are just sky-high because it's a luxury market, and suckers will pay anything.

Richemont group has something like 16% margins.

coldtea 2697 days ago

What's the margin of the watch itself (factory, labor, etc vs cost) not their overall operating margins as a company?

And is that 16% margin due to "R&D" eating into them?

Or do they calculate their margins after hefty executive bonuses, lavish corporate offices, and other "expenses"? Not to mention that they also run all kind of boutique shops of their own and venture into various areas outside watches.

coldtea 2697 days ago

>Some people are loosing their jobs , see , maybe me myself, i am loosing a job because of Falsification...

Serves them right, since most of the "high end watch" industry is selling 10x overpriced items to rich show-offs and overpaying suckers.

I'm not talking one-of-a-kind, manually crafted pieces with valuable materials here. I'm talking even the "low end" 2-10K watches, with BS generic mechanisms, and costing nowhere near that to make.

>Some people are loosing their jobs , see , maybe me myself, i am loosing a job because of Falsification...

Who exactly is losing their job because of fake watches? I do not believe that you will be able to present any convincing evidence that replica watches are actually hurting the sales of genuine watches.

>Lot of money in design for some malicious smartass chinese guy to come and copy and sell by 10 times cheaper

What do you think about homage watches? Most people don't seem to have a problem with those, the guy in the youtube video specifically says homage watches are OK.

If you aren't familiar with homage watches, look at this: http://i56.tinypic.com/k4hug1.jpg

paradoxparalax 2697 days ago

One someones buy a fake watch, he is not buying the real one, so is there a win-win to everybody here? who is the owner of the design?

man...if you were an inventor , and spend time inventing something nice, them you don't make money out of it, would you like that?

>One someones buy a fake watch, he is not buying the real one, so is there a win-win to everybody here?

I would think that this is extremely uncommon. I think the following scenario is more likely:

"X buys fake watch, X likes fake watch, X buys the real watch"

>who is the owner of the design?

The whole fake/not-fake thing usually has very little to do with the actual design of the watch, but the branding.

You're wrong, they infiltrate the supply chain, and catch unsuspecting consumers trying to buy the real thing. There are fakes all over chrono24, fake SARB017's recently found on Amazon, and there are a ton of fake Casio F-91W's.

masonic 2697 days ago

  "X buys fake watch, X likes fake watch, X buys the real watch"

This explains all those people you see wearing two watches.