Editorial - Ethix and Replix

Things haven't always been this way. The manufacturing of automobile replicas began at an advanced stage of development of the automotive industry, when the glamorous era of the coachbuilders was gone and the huge numbers of pretty much identical and rather dull vehicles triggered an adverse reaction among the fervent fans of the automobile.

Now, we have plants, small-scale manufacturers, workshops or even DIYers reproducing already known desired automobiles in a more or less accurate manner, yet at a life-scale functional size. Is it OK what they do?

Inevitably, the makers of the original automobiles were offended to see their creative endeavor materialized from scratch, which had cost them effort and resources, reproduced and sold at a discount price by more or less dubious third parties. Some of the pirated brands tried to put an end to the situation by going to court. Justice has often been hampered by the limits of international enforcement of copyright laws. Other times, simply, the problem did not come up anymore.

How normal is it to find on the market cars that look roughly the same on the outside, but have significantly different technical content, build quality and performance? On top of that, speaking of replicas, there is no explicit conflict in terms of sales targets between replicas and the cars they imitate. Quite sure, a Ferrari customer will never be a Ferrari replica customer and probably things won’t happen also the other way around.

The price, the level of refinement of the design, the fit and finish (there are downright ridiculous replicas in these respects), as well as what the object has to offer in terms of sensations and performance are usually incompatible considering the original cars and their replicas.

Also, the manufacturer of the original automobile (Ferrari or anything else) has every right to feel aggrieved by the appearance of replicas because any uninformed person on the street could form a bad opinion about the original cars by unknowingly examining a replica.

Creating an automobile imitation remains morally reprehensible, at least according to Western culture. The culture of the Far East, however, sees the situation differently - which is why no one will be able to shame any Asian manufacturers even for two minutes for producing replicas of the already known Mercedes-Benz, Land Rover, Porsche, Rolls-Royce, Toyota, VW and other cars. The typical learning process practiced in the Far East involves imitating a master till getting to do what the master does as well as him, possibly better.

Thus, switching back the perspective, do the claims of reserved rights by the Western authors over their own creations have a somehow restrictive character? The real purpose of copyright protection has two major components. The first: if you keep making efforts to materialize a project, it would be normal for you, not some imitator, to get all the benefits of its success. The second: the spread of an imitation product (having a price, but also inferior characteristics to the original) will, over time, have an implicit effect of compromising the original brand - which here would have no other fault than that of being imitated by someone else.