This is a response to Kevin Cleary's video:
"Why I Think Its Okay to Buy Clones" Published Mar. 30, 2018
My comment republished here in case it is taken down:
I’ll give you the ultimate reason that all clone buyers buy a clone knife, that trumps all other reasons, and the simple fact is: because they can. It is the same reason that thieves steal, murderers murder, and rapists rape. We can expand this further to not just because they can, but because we allow them.
We can apply this to the clone market in that U.S. Customs and I bet Customs from other countries do not know or do not care that counterfeits are being imported. If enforcement were true, then this would be significant way to stop those clone imports from happening in the first place, but it will not really affect the national market on a large scale, and with such a little payout, there is hardly any incentive to ramp up enforcement.
On the other hand, the original makers also allow us to buy clone knives. The cloners see high price tags and see an opportunity to steal a design, and create something that is not theirs with inferior materials, sometimes vastly inferior, sometimes only slightly inferior, and price these at nearly 1/5 of the original. There is such a huge margin of profit there that it is absolutely stupid not to clone it, especially when there is an entire UNTAPPED consumer base that is willing to buy such a product at a significantly lower price point.
If Benchmade makes an all steel balisong and charges us $300 for it, well then of course there’s going to be a titanium-improved version made by Flytanium (valued at $500 total) that is then cloned for $100 in China. If Spyderco charges us $100 for S30V and steel liners with G10, then of course there’s going to be $17 clones with steel liners and G10 with something along the lines of 440C or 8Cr13MoV.
On a side note: The fact that aftermarket companies like Flytanium are allowed to exist, and by that I mean that the market can support a company like this is a sure sign of the respective original companies NOT doing something that the market demands.
The incentive is there not only because of the high price tag with high quality materials, but the absolute LACK of budget-friendly options that are competitive. Why isn’t there a budget-version of the Paramilitary 2? Byrd line doesn’t count. The Byrd line isn’t an exact copy of the original. It should be the difference between the Paramilitary 2 in S110V versus the original S30V, not the difference between a standard Endura versus the Byrd Cara Cara 2. I always see more expensive iterations relative to the original, and never the other way around. People would buy a Paramilitary 2 in 8Cr13 if they only made it available and competitively priced it with other knives in that category, but instead, Spyderco has allowed the Chinese to copy it by not making a budget version, and it is the Chinese that are profiting from this missed opportunity, not Spyderco. It also opens up opportunity for those who do buy the fake to pass it off to ignorant buyers at the original price tag of $100 and keep the difference as profit.
I know I picked on Spyderco a lot in this comment, but that example is easy to illustrate. This applies to all knife manufacturers whether they are large production, or a small custom shop.
Clone buyers will continue as long as they are allowed to. Passing new laws isn’t going to solve all of the issues either. We have anti-piracy laws and circumventions like DRM, but people still pirate don’t they?
Give them a real budget alternative, and not something like the Byrd line that is an absolute eyesore that is identifiable from 30 yards that screams cheap. We should be able to go on the manufacturer’s or distributor’s website, select a knife like the PM2, have it default to its standard configuration S30V, but then be able with a click of a drop-down menu, select its blade steel like 8Cr13MoV as well as its handle materials and have it repopulate and calculate a new price. Not a new model, not a warped design, not a different company. It should be as much a part of the original as the Blurple S110V is still very much a Paramilitary 2.