Tire Rack just frakked up.
#183
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https://www.miataturbo.net/wtb-7/8-9...47/#post989857
#185
You do need to wonder how many times someone called Tire Rack saying "Do you carry 6ULs? They're out of stock everywhere. No? Do you have any 15x8/9 around a +36? Your fitment guide thing doesn't show anything and your site doesn't let me search beyond your pre-determined 'What fits my car?' listing."
After the 5th? 10th? 1000th time, maybe they figured there was a market.
I'll buy 6ULs all day every day over the TRs, though... TRs are fugly.
Ugh... why did i get fucked by a zombie thread again?
After the 5th? 10th? 1000th time, maybe they figured there was a market.
I'll buy 6ULs all day every day over the TRs, though... TRs are fugly.
Ugh... why did i get fucked by a zombie thread again?
#192
So you searched hard enough to find this thread, but couldn't find any one of a number of posts Emilio has made discussing the IP theft that Tire Rack committed?
https://www.miataturbo.net/wtb-7/8-9...47/#post989857
It does sound like what 949 is trying to accomplish is extremely hard with hours and hours of R&D.
I'm not an engineer nor a small business owner. I'm a potential consumer.
This time I chose the Chinese product and I'm quite happy.
Last edited by oregonmon; 08-30-2014 at 02:05 AM.
#193
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But I'm not surprised others have started building wheels to your fitment after your tremendous success with it. It would inevitably be noticed once the volume became substantial.
#195
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Whether or not TR stole 949 wheel specs is sort of a big claim
but like others have said, it happens all the time.
Seems like biz as usual in our society.
ALL THAT BEING SAID...
I feel like these conversations always come back to one thing: supply. While TR did blatantly copy, there are other options, like the Advanti storms, the Konigs, FFD (no X9's though), jongbloed, etc etc. I'm an FFD owner, but ONLY because 6UL's were not available. There is absolutely no question -- I would have bought 6UL's if they had been available. I don't like any other x9 options on the market.
The biggest thing 949 could have done to prevent copying, IMO, would have been to keep their wheels in stock. I KNOW Emilio says it's been beyond his control, etc. I don't know if it's actually out of his control, or that the risk required was/is too great, but I think that is what it boils down to.
#196
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The biggest thing 949 could have done to prevent copying, IMO, would have been to keep their wheels in stock. I KNOW Emilio says it's been beyond his control, etc. I don't know if it's actually out of his control, or that the risk required was/is too great, but I think that is what it boils down to.
#197
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You do need to wonder how many times someone called Tire Rack saying "Do you carry 6ULs? They're out of stock everywhere. No? Do you have any 15x8/9 around a +36? Your fitment guide thing doesn't show anything and your site doesn't let me search beyond your pre-determined 'What fits my car?' listing."
After the 5th? 10th? 1000th time, maybe they figured there was a market.
After the 5th? 10th? 1000th time, maybe they figured there was a market.
I love 949's stuff, and I'll own 6UL's someday if stock coincides with money. This is in no way intended to bash Emilio -- it's a stand-up operation. This is simply an observation of the market resulting in a statement: lack of availability of the pioneering product no doubt caused other companies to rush to market to meet demand.
#198
I guess the part I can't figure out...
...does anyone actually believe that simply because Emilio was first to market with a 15x8 wheel with 36 offset, that somehow that meant he had exclusive rights in perpetuity to those dimensions? Are we supporting the idea that whichever wheel manufacturer is first to produce a wheel in a given fitment should be the only wheel manufacturer that ever gets to produce a wheel in that fitment?
And no, it's not a valid answer that TR "stole" his fitment and didn't do their own research. You don't get to control how much work your competitors put into their product. If you do a lot of research and discover that the market wants blue widgets, and then you produce a blue widget and have success with it, why wouldn't I switch some of my red widget production over to blue widgets as a response?
Apple won some court cases against Samsung because the court felt (rightly or wrongly) that Samsung directly copied some design features and innovations from Apple. But nobody was ever barred from making a smartphone with the same size screen as Apple.
Explain to me why this is wrong.
...does anyone actually believe that simply because Emilio was first to market with a 15x8 wheel with 36 offset, that somehow that meant he had exclusive rights in perpetuity to those dimensions? Are we supporting the idea that whichever wheel manufacturer is first to produce a wheel in a given fitment should be the only wheel manufacturer that ever gets to produce a wheel in that fitment?
And no, it's not a valid answer that TR "stole" his fitment and didn't do their own research. You don't get to control how much work your competitors put into their product. If you do a lot of research and discover that the market wants blue widgets, and then you produce a blue widget and have success with it, why wouldn't I switch some of my red widget production over to blue widgets as a response?
Apple won some court cases against Samsung because the court felt (rightly or wrongly) that Samsung directly copied some design features and innovations from Apple. But nobody was ever barred from making a smartphone with the same size screen as Apple.
Explain to me why this is wrong.
#199
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Nobody is saying it's wrong that they produced a wheel in the same size as 949.
They ARE saying that it's wrong that they stole the intellectual property that 949 had done the R&D to figure out -- the sizing guides and such.
They ARE saying that it's wrong that they stole the intellectual property that 949 had done the R&D to figure out -- the sizing guides and such.
#200
Apple won a court case based upon having a patent on the copied elements.
I doubt very much that a wheel size, determined through good engineering but otherwise probably legally "obvious" would have been patentable.
So, yeah, legally speaking 15x9 in 36 offset is fair game.
Copying website text verbatim to help sell said wheels, however, is copyright infringement and not fair game.
I doubt very much that a wheel size, determined through good engineering but otherwise probably legally "obvious" would have been patentable.
So, yeah, legally speaking 15x9 in 36 offset is fair game.
Copying website text verbatim to help sell said wheels, however, is copyright infringement and not fair game.