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What is myAutoloan.com?
myAutoloan.com is the user-friendly, customer focused web site designed to empower consumers with trustworthy and complete information surrounding the researching, financing, buying and driving experience.
How does the service work?
We do this by using the Internet to provide consumers with knowledge-based content, products and services in a convenient, fast and easy online community. A user-friendly approach, developed by a company that specializes in creating the ultimate in online consumer experiences, prompts consumers through a series of basic steps to pre-qualify for a loan or to provide a wide array of useful information. Our services and site are organized along the lines of the Research-Finance-Buy-Drive aspects of the vehicle ownership lifecycle.
What makes the added steps of seeking out and arranging vehicle financing valuable when consumers often can one-stop shop their financing where they purchase their car or truck?
myAutoloan.com is about providing consumers with additional choices in vehicle financing. Individual dealers may not always have financing relationships that fit the specific needs and histories of all applicants. myAutoloan.com is designed to access many times more financing sources than typically are available in a dealer's financing office. Some consumers will prefer the broad selection of lenders available with myAutoloan.com, while others will continue to finance at the dealer. Again, it's all about choice.
What makes myAutoloan.com different from other online lenders or the web-based services provided by traditional banks or other consumer finance providers?
myAutoloan.com specializes in general information on vehicle financing and ownership – we do not get into mortgages, non-vehicle or other types of credit or loans. Likewise, we do not focus on any particular level of credit score or candidate credit experience. We are not a bank or a finance company making loans – we facilitate the connection of prospective borrowers for vehicle purchases with a variety of companies that serve clients with widely differing credit scores and histories. Accordingly, we are in a very unique market space.
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First, we have a strict code-of-conduct we impose on ourselves, as well as on the companies with which we align to provide the broadest possible service set to consumers involved in some aspect of the vehicle ownership lifecycle. Second, with all of the attention of both regulators and consumers, themselves, any firm that doesn't adhere to the highest standards of privacy and respect will rapidly be driven out of business.
How can you assure consumers that their information is technically safe with your company?
Our technical facilities are owned and controlled by persons and companies with an ownership interest in myAutoloan.com. We use the latest in security practices and processes, in both the browser-based and facilities-based aspects of our company.
Where does myAutoloan.com get the funds to lend to these consumers?
Again, myAutoloan.com is not a bank, finance or credit company. We have created relationships with numerous national lenders that, collectively, provide consumer financing of vehicles across the entire spectrum of credit scores and histories. Think of us not as a direct financer but as a matchmaking service between lenders and borrowers, and one that can do much beyond just the financing aspects of the total vehicle ownership experience.
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The Juventus midfielder is now highly-regarded in his own right, with the decision to leave Manchester United in pursuit of regular opportunities in 2012 paying handsome dividends.
Pogba has emerged as a leading light in Serie A, landing back-to-back league titles, and is currently illuminating the World Cup stage with France.
At just 21 years of age, the youngster is already considered to be one of the finest performers on the planet and is generating mounting transfer speculation as the world's biggest clubs plot big-money approaches for his services.
Pogba is, however, aware that he is far from the finished article.
He is fortunate, though, to have been surrounded by world-class talent wherever he has been and has tried to take important lessons from those he has shared a training ground with.
At Old Trafford that was former England international Scholes, while in Turin Italian schemer Pirlo sets the benchmark for any aspiring playmaker.
Pogba told L'Equipe of his learning curve to date: "Nowadays I am asking advice from Andrea Pirlo at Juve.
"At Manchester United, I watched a lot of Paul Scholes, but I was too shy to ask for any advice. I watched him very closely to analyse everything he was doing and tried to copy his qualities.
"What I have noticed with both of them is the quality of their passes and the way to ask for the ball. Also the way they can feel the game. They have the ability to know what will happen ahead of everyone else."
Harry the difference is at central defence we had Rio and Vidic, and Pique didn't look anything special, certainly didn't look any better a prospect than Evans. In central midfield we were down to having to play a out of position full back and willing but limited utility player in Pogba's position. And Pique got far more of a first team chance.- Mike_Christie

subset: commoncrawl


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The Place of Cultural Explanations and Historical Specificity in Discussions of Modes of Incorporation and Segmented Assimilation
AbstractThis paper serves as an opportunity to pull together some thoughts and questions about modes of incorporation as an explanation for ethnic differences in behavior. Specifically, I ask just what is the status of cultural explanations for ethnic behavior if ethnic behavior is approaches from a modes-of-incorporation perspective. I ask this question both in connection with individduals of the immigrant generation as well as in connection with the second generation; the concern with the second generation leads me to consider the status of cultural explanations for ethnic behavior in connection with the related conception of segmented assimilation. My argument proceeds through four steps. 1) I note that the modes are introduced as a way out of being left with a large ethnic residual (or unexplained difference) from individual-level analysis and as one more way of contradicting the claim that the residual reflects the operation of independent cultural differences among groups. 2) I stress how far we can push the corollary that living in different modes can effect not only the structural opportunities available to a person but also the attitudes, values, and outlooks common in people from different groups. 3) I also stress the possibility that many specifics of an immigrant group's historical experiences are not captures by the modes of incorporation (as would be true of any typology), and that such historical specifics ignore by the typology might matter a great deal. Moreover, such historically specific features may involve cultural characteristics as well as other characteristics, cultural characteristics related not at all or only tangentially to the aspects of experience discussed in the typology of the modes. 4) A big question, from this perspective, then, is: how well do the modes in fact explain the residual ethnic differences unexplained by the individual-level variables? And how do we answer that question empirically?
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Bibliographic InfoPaper provided by EconWPA in its series Macroeconomics with number 9808004.
Length: 24 pages
Date of creation: 11 Aug 1998
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Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:9808004
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Find related papers by JEL classification:
- E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-1998-10-02 (All new papers)
ReferencesReferences listed on IDEAS
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- George J. Borjas, 1991.
"Ethnic Capital and Intergenerational Mobility,"
NBER Working Papers
3788, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Borjas, George J, 1992. "Ethnic Capital and Intergenerational Mobility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 107(1), pages 123-50, February.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
"How to Remotivate" a guild is the ENTIRELY wrong question and is really an indicator of the true problem.
Re-Motivation is a by-product of change. You have to change the things that un-motivate a guild in the first place.
So ... what un-motivates most guilds in the first place? You ready for this?
Poor Leadership
When Leadership take guilds into encounters they really have no business doing, that is poor leadership and un-motivates players.
When Leadership let "bad players" stay in the guild/raid, yet try to do "hard content", that is poor leadership and un-motivates players.
When Leadership plays "favorites" on raid invites causing the raid "balance" to be unfavorable to hard encounters, that is poor leadership and un-motivates people. (ie: Do any of your Leadership sit on the side of hard encounters cause they are not needed due to class balance, or sit because other players out perform them?).
So ... there is no sense in trying to RE-MOTIVATE a guild if Leadership is just going to immediately UN-MOTIVATE them again?
The right question is: How do I become a better leader.
Once you start to take personal responsibility for the problems in the guild, then you can start to make changes that will ultimately re-motivate a guild.
How to become a better leaders is a topic for an article itself.


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I've recently seen a spate of engineers declaring boredom and/or dissatisfaction with their current roles and responsibilities, which leads them to openly question what options are available.
It's really nice if you can decouple your external API from the details of application segregation and deployment. On my current project we've building a distributed service oriented architecture that also exposes an HTTP API, and we're using a reverse proxy to route requests addressed to our API to individual components...
I am a fan of Capistrano from way back and we use it for almost all kind of deployments - Hadoop, MongoDB clusters and so on. If you have not tried Capistrano, you must try it and figure out how you can use for deployments in your environment.
This is a classic DevOps presentation from a former Velocity conference that I thought people could take another look at or see this for the first time. It's definitely worth it.
Andy Parker gives a quick-but-dense talk at Puppet Camp Austin on the fundamentals of testing and test-driven development.
Here's a 14-minute discussion about the future of DevOps presented by Patrick Debois.
It's been to years ago, I've released my own project - Trackyt.net. Month ago I've cancelled my VPS lease contract, so your would not see it available at http://trackyt.net anymore.
We've covered the controversy of a DevOps Team on this blog before. DevOps Teams are dangerous in that many organizations realize that their Dev and Ops groups . . .
Maintainable software projects usually take the issue tracker seriously. More often, it is used not only to monitor bugs and defects, but also to serve as a task tracker.
Automated configuration tools (such as CFEngine, Puppet, or Chef) allow you to specify how servers should be configured, and bring new and existing machines into compliance. This helps to avoid the problem of fragile SnowflakeServers.
Careful study of the HamCalc shows a number of quirks. Some are funny, some are just examples of the need for unit test frameworks.
At Tangent we handle environment-specific configuration of Django projects using the method outlined by David Cramer. This involves distinguishing between core settings (which we keep in core/default.py) and environment specific settings (eg core/stage.py, core/test.py).
Automated configuration tools (such as CFEngine, Puppet, or Chef) allow you to avoid SnowflakeServers by providing recipes to describe the configuration of elements of a server.
Some additional points on using Python 2.7 in a way that bridges the gap to Python 3.2. The steps are small and simple. You can start taking them now.
Design Patterns above claims that programming to an interface and not an implementation reduces implementation dependencies, and thus it follows that ptainai reduces the probability of ripple-effects. But is this true?
Are you using Celery to process python backend tasks asynchronously? Have you wanted to get insight into their resource consumption and efficiency? Here's a few useful ways to get insight into Celery performance when running tasks.
The theme of last Thursday's DevOps Ireland talks at Engine Yard Dublin was automated deployment.
Here's a little example of using Hadley Wickham's testthat package for unit testing R code. You can read more about testthat here.
Continuous Delivery aims to overcome the large delivery costs traditionally associated with releasing software, and in The Principles of Product Development Flow Don Reinertsen describes delivery cost as a function of transaction cost and holding cost.
I had to read a log file containing a few hundred lines today at work. My first instinct was to open it using my trusty Notepad++.
Enterprises are building, testing, and deploying software faster and more frequently now than at any point in the past. Faced with unprecedented demands, many of these software development organizations are realizing their rollout processes are haphazard, at best.
The core technology used in Eclipse is OSGI, which makes it easily extensible. There are plenty of plugins out there, some are well known, however there might be some you've never heard of, but might find them useful, once you see them in action.
This tutorial runs through the process of adding parallel testing to your unit test framework with Python.
This week we're talking to Tim Spann, Java developer of fifteen years and blogger at http://www.agilemobiledeveloper.com.
Ever see one of these? It means something is wrong with the website – very wrong – yet somehow we seem to keep building websites that do this.


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PIC: JWoww is Engaged!!
Congrats are in order to Jenni "JWoww" Farley! Her juice head boyfriend Roger Mathews popped the question on a recent skydiving trip. And as expected, The ring is sustainably huge. Only the most gorilla – sized diamond will do for JWoww.
[From intouchweekly.com]
After months of planning, her beau of two-and-a-half years popped the question during a skydiving session. After floating down to earth, "I look over and see a hand-written sign: 'Jenni, will you … ' and then I turned to him and freaked out," recalls Jenni, who was so overwhelmed from her plane jump that she missed both the handwritten sign he'd made and his verbal plea for her hand in marriage. "The whole time I'm screaming, 'What are you doing? What's going on?'" she tells In Touch. "He's like, 'I want to spend the rest of my life with you! Will you allow me to?'" Of course the answer was an unequivocal "yes." "If I had to imagine a perfect guy, it would be him," Jenni gushes
Evidently, In the latest issue of InTouch, the ring is more than 5 carats and surrounded by 2.5 carats of pink and white diamonds.
Check out Jenni's gorgeous rock: eonli.ne/UVN4Zn


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- Primary Role
- SVP Product & Business Development at SST Inc. (Formerly ShotSpotter)
- Education
- Yale University
- Website:
- http://www.jamesbeldock.com
Person DetailsUpdate
James G. Beldock, an experienced turn-around and growth entrepreneur, joined the ShotSpotter team in early 2003, when he was introduced by the Company's lead investor. As the company's first CEO, James developed and executed ShotSpotter's market entry strategy and led the company from deployments in four cities to over 50, increased annual sales more than 50-fold, and led the company's 2005 acquisition of Centurist Systems and its 2009 acquisition of the SECURES business unit of Planning Systems, Inc.
He has now turned his energies towards global market penetration as President of the company's International efforts. ShotSpotter is his third venture-funded or private equity-backed company, and he has raised in excess of $65m for companies he has led. Previously, he was chairman and CTO of WebPutty, an enterprise software company subsequently acquired by Charles River, of which he had previously served as the Company's president and CEO. Prior to joining WebPutty, James was Entrepreneur in Residence at SAC Capital where he performed turn-around and portfolio operations work at other portfolio companies.
Previously, as president and CEO of Cogito Software, a company he founded in 1994, James delivered software and managed technology projects for well-known institutions including Princeton University and New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center. He has also served as vice president for R&D and CTO at Primavera Laboratories, where he was responsible for product development of over-the-counter drugs and other regulated products generating retail revenues in excess of $300m. He holds patents in the fields of computer memory hardware, Internet business methods and information security and has published peer review articles in fields ranging from medical informatics to user interface design.
James is a cum laude graduate of Yale University and studied Computer Science at Columbia University. In 2001, James was recognized as one of America's leading executives under the age of 45 when he was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. He sits on the board of directors of PAX, the nation's largest anti-gun violence non-profit organization and creator of the life-saving Ask and Speak Up! campaigns, and is a member of Business Executives for National Security (BENS) and the Steering Committee of the Aspen Institute Socrates Society. He maintains a blog at www.jamesbeldock.com.
Experience (5)Update
Primavera Laboratories
vice president for R&D and CTO
SAC Capital Advisors
Chairman and CTO
SST Inc. (Formerly ShotSpotter)
SVP Product & Business Development
Education (1)Update
Yale University
BAClassical Civilization (Greek & Latin)


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main index
A shonen manga that was published in Shonen Sunday magazine. It stars high school student Akira Kongoh, a ten-to-twelve-foot-tall mountain of muscle with incredibly spiky Anime Hair, mile-wide shoulders, and a stare that could cut bread.After a series of misadventures involving a young girl named Hinako Sakura, who has a compulsion to take pictures of things that are "sooooo unusual" with her cell phone's camera, and her younger sister Tsukimi, in which he demonstrates his incredible strength and resilience (as well as his capacity for kindness and understanding), Kongoh reveals his reasons for his sudden appearance: He has come to stop something called "The 23 District Project". This involves people called "Bancho", people who have exceptional fighting skills as well as great amounts of charisma (and who can be identified by the dark red phoenix tattoo on the back of their neck), fighting for control of the 23 districts of Japan. (The word "bancho" itself is usually used to refer to the leader of a delinquent gang, and all Bancho wear Japanese school uniform jackets, in one form or another.) Whosoever conquers them all will be given control of Japan and will be able to mold its future to their liking.He later ends up defeating one of the Bancho - Iai Bancho, a master of iaijutsu. He is then told that defeating a bancho means you gain their territory and are now part of the 23 District Project, whether you want to be or not, and is given his new title by his defeated opponent: Kongoh Bancho.From there, it leads to awesome fights with The Power of Friendship causing Defeat Means Friendship to those who are defeated, while trying to stop the Big Bad and his Absurdly Powerful Student Council from destroying Japan's population.The manga ended with 114 chapters and 12 volumes.
This manga provides examples of:


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A new beginning for families in tornado-ravaged Henryville.
Seven months after a tornado swept through, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Indiana is helping build 10 brand-new homes for victims of the March 2 tornado.
The project kicked off Monday with hundreds of volunteers from all over Indiana and even as far as Des Moines, Iowa, showing up to participate.
More than 200 volunteers are expected every day through Friday to completely build the exterior of the homes.
Families whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged will be starting over in the Twin Oaks neighborhood on Henryville's south side.
"We have 10 amazing families with amazing stories of their survival through that storm. They are now rebuilding their lives through building their own house," said Gina Leckron, state director of Habitat for Humanity.
The Nasby family is one of the families set to get a new home.
"It's a new experience for us. The kids are watching the house being built. We are grow as a family and moving on from where we were to where we're going," said Anthony Nasby.
The families say this experience is a dream come true and they are grateful for the support they're getting from complete strangers.
"It's great! People volunteering their time. They don't even know who we are and they're coming out to help. I'm so thankful," said Melissa Nasby.
The families are purchasing their homes interest-free from Habitat--and they're all putting in 200 "sweat equity hours" to help build their homes.
The goal of the project is to have all the families moved into their new homes by mid-December.


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The Real Cost of Knock-Offs
Dwell Magazine
How do you feel about knock-off furniture? It seems like a victimless process that brings design to the masses, but is there more to it than that? Dwell magazine investigates in this article by Jaime Gillin.
It can be difficult for designers to keep other companies from creating imitations of their work, because, as the author points out:
Intellectual property laws in the United States generally don't protect functional items, and since most modern furniture fits squarely into that category, designers often have a hard time fighting knockoffs. They can protect certain original, innovative, or decorative elements within their works, but they can't 'own' the concept of a clean-lined chair or dresser.
It would be hard to find a person that didn't want to support the designers who are losing money because of lower-quality knock-offs created by other companies, but what about those who can't afford such expensive designs? Should they buy a knock-off of what they truly want, or invest in a less expensive piece by a local or lesser known designer?
Read the rest of the article at Dwell, and tell us your thoughts here. I'm anxious to hear your opinions!
• Knockoffs: Flattery or Theft?
• Eames Knock Offs, Fakes & Copies
• The Real Deal v The Steal: Can A Knock-Off Ever Be Okay?
(Illustration by Jonathan Williams for Dwell)
41 Comments
"Intellectual property laws in the United States generally don't protect functional items..."
Not true. Patent law protects functional items. The issue is that much furniture would not meet the bar for patentability, mainly novelty and nonobviousness.
I really only see a problem with knockoffs of designs from designers who are still relying on their designs to make a living or who are relatively new. I see no problem with buying an Eames knockoff since the only people profiting from it are probably not struggling in any way.
When products have such a huge price difference, you can't really use the argument of "they are stealing my livelihood". Um. No. The person buying a $100 knockoff would have never shelled out the thousands the original company is asking for. If the knockoff didn't exist, they just wouldn't have bought it. Period. Also, a commentor from the original article made a good point. Would you tell people to stop buying generic medication because they are stealing from the original pharmaceutical company? Probably not.
Personally, I think you should buy what you can afford, and what you like.
I don't agree with knock offs per se (your design should be your design), but I sure as heck don't have $5,000 or more to spend on a real Eames chair.
If good design is supposed to be timeless, it either needs to be affordable for the masses, or understood that there will always be knockoffs for those who can't afford the real deal.
I cannot wait to see the flame war that's bound to happen. Every time we compare knockoffs to real deal, there's always some very strong opinions that come out.
Isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery, after all?
Designer companies don't lose money to knock offs. That is a problematic myth. Seems to be based on an absurd assumption that everyone who buys a knock off would magically feel compelled to buy the (pricey) original if only that pesky cheap thing weren't there. The fact is that familiarity with a design concept gets those with means exposed to the original and this facilitates sales. The open exchange of ideas allows for cheaper objects to become better designs. The myth of the genius designer needs to end.
There's a good TED talk about intellectual property rights and fashion (which pretty much falls into the same category as furniture design - practical item elevated to "art" at times): http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html
Wow, that (original) article was pointless. Most of the issue around knockoffs is about so-called classic pieces, not those of struggling young designers. My guess is that Dwell doesn't want to address that issue to avoid upsetting their advertisers.
The point made by an earlier poster comparing knockoff Eames, etc to generic drugs is an interesting one.
If you can't afford to buy the original why not wait and save money in your piggy bank, the old school way? Because consumerism demands you to have it NOW? Because you want to PRETEND that you can afford it? Isn't it better to look for cheaper stuff by young designers and have clear conscience?
When buying designer piece you pay not only for the materials used, but also for the clever idea. Not all people have clever ideas on their own, but that doesn't mean they have the right to steal them from others.
This is one of those issues where I see a lot of shades of gray. For something like the Eames chair, I agree with the comments here -- a $100 knock-off isn't hurting them because that buyer probably wouldn't be shelling out for the genuine article anyway.
What bothers me is when I hear about a large company ripping off the design of a small time designer. I've read several articles about Urban Outfitters stealing ideas, and there's also this about H&M: H&M Rips Off Atlanta Artist, Does Damage Control on Facebook
Imitation is the sincerest form...and so on. There is usually a quality difference between knock-offs and the originals (not always, and some knockoff furniture is actually better made than the originals). So you can argue that the item is "inspired by" the original rather than copied. Why should furniture be any different than clothing? Within hours of the Academy Awards red-carpet broadcast, copies of all the celebrities' gowns are in the works and ready for preorder. That's fashion. And furniture is part of fashion.
I am an underpaid public servant who bought a knock-off Barcelona chair and ottoman for about $600. The Knoll edition retails for over $5000 for just the chair. Never in my lifetime would I pay that much for ANY chair, not even one hand crafted and signed by the designer. I just cannot afford it. So Knoll didn't lose a sale. Without the knockoff, I would have had to settle for some entirely different chair style, probably thrift, and I wouldn't have the pleasure of having something I consider elegant and streamlined in my bedroom.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe died in 1969, according to Wikipedia. He no longer cares.
My chair seems to me to be well constructed and very comparable looking to the Real Deal. If they can sell the SET for $600, I have to believe that something wonky is up with Knoll's production costs or profit margins. There shouldn't be more than $4500 difference in a perfectly acceptable knockoff and the official version -- we aren't talking solid gold parts, here.
If companies like Knoll are bothered by knockoffs, maybe they should find ways to reduce the cost to consumer. I have no use for the elitist mentality of designing only for the rich, and the rest of the world can just admire from a distance. Even if I don't have money, I do have taste, and I will try to get the look I like, even if it means buying "reproductions".
That said, I do see a difference between this and buying forgeries or rip-offs of the work or current artists. (Maybe furniture designers sometimes straddle the line into "artist" to me, but not universally.) I wouldn't copy another artists' work and I wouldn't buy a known copy. My ethical line has more to do with dead artists/designers and ridiculous pricing.
Everybody has their own standards, I suppose.
If I find a great pair of jeans I love for $500 and a pair of jeans in the same cut, wash, and fabric that is produced ethically (no sweat shops) for $100, I am going to buy the $100 pair of jeans. If a company can produce a chair that has the same aesthetics, functionality, and comfort as a designer chair that costs 10-50 times as much, then why wouldn't I go for the less expensive chair? Just for the benefit of having a designer chair? Furthermore, companies that produce designer chairs can charge whatever they want for them. If they want to charge $5,000 a chair, then they're going to be competing with companies that can produce the same chair for much cheaper. As long as the knock-off isn't trying to pass itself off as the real deal (by slapping on a label that says Knohl Eemes, for example), then I don't see what the problem is.
@jen83, the reason generic drugs can be sold is that drug patents expire. Period. It's not comparable to design. BTW, the way drug companies milk expired patents is to redesign or repackage the drug by piggybacking it on another. For instance, the migraine medication Imitrex (Sumatriptan) lost patent protection a few years ago, so Glaxo came out with a sumatriptan-naproxen (Aleve) pill called Treximet ... which is patented and is the same as taking a generic sumatriptan pill with an over-the-counter Aleve. The only ones being robbed are we consumers who pay for the insurance and Medicare reimbursements...but I digress.
I agree with the above statement that the article falls short by not talking about present day designs and designers- only typical MCC versions which are now sold by big manufacturers, not the designers themselves.
Although I adore my classic pieces that I inherited (I could never afford them on my own), I also understand that the very point of many of these designs were to be accessible to the masses (Eames, et al) - not exclusive to Herman Miller or whoever now sells them.
Also, I recently purchased a knockoff molded plastic "Eiffel" chair and I'm glad that I paid $100 for it and not $500 as I promise the only difference is that the receipt was not from DWR. I like to think that the Eamses would be psyched that I beat the system. Also, you gets what you pay for- some knockoffs are crap. So there's that...
Finally, I might "steal" this story and use it on my own design blog. So BAM! The knock-off cycle continues! Xo.
I don't see how a design patent wouldn't cover many furniture designs. Apple uses them a lot, and has been successful in defending them in court.
Yes. I have never understood why new examples long-dead designers' pieces can still fetch many thousands. I can understand vintage antiques, but I wonder how much of the $5,000 price for a new Barcelona Chair is pure profit for Knoll.
Different situation, but I recently looked for a pair of vintage MCM lounge chairs. Prices for certain brands/designers approached the five figures. That's fine--if you can afford it. I couldn't. Besides, I knew if I had spent that much on the chairs I would feel a need to keep them for the rest of my life. You know, maybe I will want different chairs in 20 years or so... I ended up with a perfectly nice pair of chairs from what I would consider a second-tier brand. More importantly, they look good in my space and I don't feel married to them. If ever I decide that I want to change my look, I won't have any trouble selling them to a new owner.
I say, buy what you can afford, and a lot of people cannot afford $5,000 chairs and $10,000 couches.
@rural.. I know patents expire and that is why generic medication exists. I'm looking at it from a moral viewpoint, not a legal one. If you want to look at it solely from a legal viewpoint, then you should have no problem with knockoffs since the their design wasn't protected in the first place, right? Even if the designs were patented in the 1950's, it would've expired long ago since patents are only renewed in very rare cases.
Again, I do have a problem with knockoffs of designers who are still active and selling their products to make a living. But let's not pretend the guys at Herman Miller are sitting in their backyard sheds hand crafting Eames chairs.
If designers and their heirs were not so greedy that they will only sell/license their designs for many multiples of what they cost to produce, there would be no knock-offs. If designers and their heirs want to sell more of their originals, they have only to price them with a lower profit margin. There is no simply no reason for most relatively basic wood, steel, sheepskin, or leather chairs (including iconic mid-century or modern designs) to cost $1,500 to $12,000.
Oddly, it seems that most designers prefer for their designs to be used by a relatively few people willing and able to spend a fortune on their design rather than by the masses who can only afford to pay a reasonable sum on their furniture. I'd argue that design that is too expensive for most is bad design.
If you design for pure consumerism, then of course knock-offs are bad for business. Even if the people buying knock-offs could never afford your original pieces, it hurts your overall "brand".
But if you design as a means of expression, then knock-offs are meaningless. I can splatter paint on a canvas, but I'll never be Jackson Pollock. And I don't think the MoMA will come knocking on my door. But they might buy more original Pollock's, because my knock-offs make him more relevant.
I'll say here what I said on Dwell's site:
This is an appalling article that panders to a fraudulent industry. And I speak from experience, having been a furniture retailer who dealt repeatedly with the purveyors of "original" designs. As another reader points out, the whole point of early modernism was to make mass-produced pieces anyone could afford. The racket that has grown up on the backs of long-dead designers is nothing short of extortion, and the "intellectual property" defense is sheer self-serving nonsense. These companies run exorbitantly expensive showrooms around the world, selling their wares to "designers" whose profits depend on the exclusivity of the products they can deliver. Creative originality has NOTHING to do with it; the whole point is to maintain the aura of authenticity for wealthy elites to brag about. The high prices are a form of enclosure—they keep out the riff-raff. And Dwell is only too happy to pitch in to the cause. Shame on you.
Michael K, you hit the brass nail on the head!
Yeah, what Michael K. said. Also, Design within Reach which is where many people turn to get the real deal, sold funiture which was a little bit too much inspired by other peoples design as well. http://www.fastcompany.com/node/1460614/print Just that the designers they copied weren't long dead. So yeah, most of the things those companies say about knock-offs, fakes and real is about money, not authenticity or integrity.
The first thing that came to my mind reading this was Urban Outfitters/H&M and their habit of knocking off talented designers and selling to the masses. It's awful and they deserve every bit of scorn they've received.
But it works the other way, too. The people selling knockoff Eames chairs aren't Robin Hood - they're profiteers.
Get a used version of what you truly want! With all the resources we have at our finger tips ie. etsy, ebay, craigslist, 1stdibs, etc., it is easier than ever to get what you want for a deal!
Design Within Reach of the 1%. Sorry, I'm not buyin'.
The design of a piece of furniture can be covered by a design patent. Shoe companies do it every day to protect the "look" of a new design. The design patent currently only lasts 14 years and then the design slips into the public domain. So, if any of the classic designs we love were ever patented, they have long expired and others are free to make the designs if they wish. Intellectual property can be obtained, but it only lasts for a few years so it doesn't really help in the long term. This article is not entirely correct.
"Less expensive pieces" from "local designers" --- I haven't seen these, ever.
Local designers don't sell less expensive items, not to mention they're a bit to "kitschy" for me.
Pretty much have the choice on the affordable end of buying generic nasty mass produced furniture, and knock offs that usually cost the same or less, while being better put together. A lot of these knock off companies seem to take quality control far more seriously than the department store brands.
Beyond bedroom suites and lounges it's pretty hard to get a nice table, chair or lamp that isn't a knock off. I definitely have no desire to fill my house with cheap pine local furniture either.
Knock offs being sold as genuine are the problem, they will have a closer cost to the original and may be of lower quality. Knock offs sold as replica's for 1/10th of the cost of an original though? That person was never buying an original.
Unfortunately if you don't live in the USA or Europe it's pretty much impossible to get bargain second hand designer furniture.
I bought a knock off Bourgie lamp for <$100, and I love it. I'm not going to live in the dark while scrimping and saving for the "real" thing (like one commenter suggested). I need light! And at the end of the day, it's just molded plastic and a cord. Mine is even UL listed like the original!
Is the whole point of wanting say, an Eames chair, because you appreciate its design? The word design itself infers skill, proccess, intent and creativity. By buying a reproduction piece (made by someone who has 'stolen' the design), aren't you demeaning the true value of that peice from a design point of view?
If you can't understand why the original costs $10,000 (or aren't willing to pay) then you don't get the point!
look harder
Most of Danish mid-century furniture was designed with the ethos of combining design, craft, functionality and affordability. Many of the great designers/architects also produced designs that they sold to the larger factories - which is why there is so much great unbranded stuff from that time! Finally, even those designs that where then and now produced more expensively, many were designed around "innovative" production methods (bentwood, etc.) chosen to ease and speed up their making, as well as allowing for exceptional new forms. The prices much of it is sold at today are OUTRAGEOUS.
Yet in Denmark it is still considered extremely gauche to have replicas....
I am willing to pay a lot for craft - a real Egg or Barcelona chair IS exceptional and can never be matched. Perhaps it is more a question of the profit margins v. price-point that something needs to be at to be considered good enough for the luxury market, which is more stable than others. We sell less, but we make more money?
PS. McDonald's got a lot of publicity for buying real Egg chairs for their UK restaurants:
....then furnished all the rest with fakes/replicas. I leave in a "dodgy" area of London and got the fakes. Plastic Fantastic.....
PPS. I would feel a bit funny about it - I wouldn't wear "fake" branded big-ticket fashion item, say a bag or shoes, even if I loved the design.....HMMM....
PPS. I AM very much in love with this though.....the original is around $ 4,000 I think....
SIGH. It's not easy, is it?
Wow. So the argument boils down to, "Like, OMG! I wanted it but I couldn't afford it so, like, I *had* to steal it!"
If you can't afford to buy the original why not wait and save money in your piggy bank, the old school way? Because consumerism demands you to have it NOW? Because you want to PRETEND that you can afford it?
No...because I don't want to live in a house full of Wal-Mart and Ikea until I'm 50. I don't care what people think I paid for it; I don't know anyone who buys replicas in hopes their friends think they're rich. We just want attractive furniture of decent quality. Design should not be limited to the 1%.
Isn't it better to look for cheaper stuff by young designers and have clear conscience?
That's a nice theory but I've never seen "cheaper stuff by young designers." And I live in New York, where presumably they would be. Links please.
I'm glad the article and discussion wound up here. When I first read the Dwell piece, it gave me a lot to think about. I care about design and quality, so I should stand up for those ideals. I want to invest in quality pieces that stand the test of time. I also started thinking of how much "junk" we modern Americans make and buy annually, rather than buying quality items.
Then the 'Capitalist' side of me kicked in. I'm not sure what the profit margin is for most DWR items, but I don't think they're exactly hurting. Weren't most Eames products made to be cheaply mass-produced?? Wasn't that the purpose? If we are to buy designer pieces, you can't price them sky-high. Maybe the designer pieces shouldn't be "luxury priced". Maybe those prices should be reduced so that those of us who treasure them can afford them. The pricing of these items is what has created the void that the knock-offs has filled. If there was only a $100-300 dollar difference between a knock-off Jacobsen or Saarenin and the real thing, I wouldn't think twice about springing for the real thing.
So, everyone is apparently in agreement that good design and good construction has value, and it's not all that easy to come by, but they'd rather rip-off someone's intellectual property and have decided to rationalize it with the simple idea of desiring it?
Now I understand why, as a designer, I'm ripped-off all of the time.
No. It's silly to spend thousands on a chair when you can get it for hundreds. Some people would have to save for years for one chair and that is ridiculous. Young, new designers have to charge quite a bit just to get their money back on their products and it is worth it for good carpentry and craftsmanship but not for a chair that has been around for 50+ years and is massed produced. I think most people buying a knock off item here or there is trying to fool anyone.
What I really want to know is how many of you saying "buy the knockoff" were supporting Apple in its recent fight with Samsung about the very same design infringement issues?
Originals cost more because designers need to make a living too.
Knock offs help a high end designer by promoting is status and lack of attainability. Oh this is a REAL LV bag. All those peasants wish they were me.