Net Scavenging On the Rise

from the business-today... dept

Thu, Nov 11th 1999 4:09pm — Mike Masnick

Paul Cateon writes "As a senior professional in a web calendaring startup, it's frustrating to see the big companies like Yahoo coming to our site and scavenging our intellecual property. Not all of us can register patents quickly. It seems to me there is no business ethics left in some of the big Internet companies. They just keep visiting your site on a regular basis and keep taking stuff and call it their own. Anyone experiencing this kind of menace? We need to work on a joint initiative to protect the intellectual property of small companies. While the big players are mourning that MS is a monopoly, the small players are left out of the game altogether. Does anyone have any suggestions how we can succeed and stop this scavenging business." Paul brings up an interesting point, and while it goes against some of my rules for posting, I'm posting it anyway. My comments will be in the comment section (click below).

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Mike (profile), 11 Nov 1999 @ 4:14pm

I disagree completely
Sorry Paul... while I'll post what you have to say because I think it might start an interesting discussion I completely disagree. Welcome to business. There is nothing "unethical" about seeing what your competitors are doing and adding similar features. That's how the world works. If your ideas are really revolutionary that you should patent them. An online calendaring startup doesn't impress me, simply in that there are hundreds of them, and I've never seen any of them as sustainable businesses. They're a product plain and simple. If you have a real business, then you have a competitive advantage and you don't worry about some other company copying your idea.

It's not an intellectual property issue... it's a business one. If you can't give a good, sustainable business proposition don't try to hide behind intellectual property concerns.
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- Brandon Rice, 14 Jun 2000 @ 11:37am
  
  Re: I disagree completely
  I agree to agree with the disagreeer (Is that a word?) Providing a product to consumers will always put you between a rock and a hard place. You have to essentially give away something to keep the people coming, and discriminating between everyday consumer and Mr.-Big-Corporate-Gonna-Steal-My-Idea is very difficult to do. Thus you have to take that step of faith and believe that what you're offering IS really that awesome! Being AWESOME in terms of product development means that you know what you're doing and that you can beat any wimpy copy-cat at their own game. That's business and the risk thereof.
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