Well, it's obvious that I pissed a lot of people off here by posting about the copyright on my fire pits and I'm sorry if you feel I was out of line in the way that I went about it. I think the readers of this forum and I may have more in common than is suggested my my "long hair." For those of you who felt angered by what I posted earlier, here is a more personal explanation of where I'm coming from:
I am a small business owner who supports a family, pays taxes, and supports other local businesses through the sale of my firepits. I have an assistant who depends on the income I provide him to make his house payment. I buy the tanks at the scrapyard, paying a premium to have them cut and delivered (I've spent over $10,000 at the scrapyard this year alone). I am one of the larger customers for my local freight company.
There are not a lot of successful businesses or job opportunities in the area of Michigan where I live, and the income I make from my art and spend in the community is important to the people I support. The fact that I am able to sell my work globally and bring money into the Michigan economy (one of the worst in the nation) is something that I am very proud of and I feel pretty good about the fact that I can help people pay their bills while larger corporate companies are laying people off left and right.
I built my business up from literally nothing by busting my *** 18 hours a day, 365 days a year for most of a decade. The fact that I haven't held a job in ten years isn't laziness, it's a desire to work harder and longer to do something I care about and find ways to make it useful to others as well.
bx2230orange wrote:
Maybe instead of threatening to sue you should thank him for letting people know about your site.....I know I would have never heard of it or you if it hadn't been for excelegator.
I agree that a link is a valuable thing especially since I make about 98% of my sales over the internet. Links to the site are one of the ways people discover me. On the other hand, I feel like there's a difference between a link that says "Hey, here's a cool thing, go check it out" and one that says "Look at the prices guys! Go get more propane tanks!"
Doing some research I found this site.
The Beach Burner Portable Bonfire: 24 and 30 inch Recycled Steel Fire Pits: ArtBuzz
Look at the prices guys!
Go get more propane tanks!
What upset me isn't the idea that someone might make a similar firepit for their own use, but the words "Go get more propane tanks," which to me suggests commercial exploitation of the idea. I'm not worried about individuals who make their own, for their own use.
The two things that concern me most are not the potential lost income that would come from copies of the pits. They are this:
1. I have built a world-wide reputation with my designs. If people copy them and don't do as good a job as I do, their work could be mistaken for mine and hurt that reputation.
2. I have contracts with my resellers that specify the minimum price at which these items can be sold and if other people undersell me, that hurts my relationship with those vendors.
I did get an email from someone who visited from excelagator's link and was excited about the idea of copying the designs as closely as he could and marketing them at 1/3rd the price. Which is fine if you're a hobbyist but doesn't work very well if you're running a business. My prices are based on what I need to make in order to offer a reasonable discount to wholesalers and still bring in enough money to support a full-size metal shop and pay the bills.
Again, I apologize if my earlier post left a bad taste in some mouths, but perhaps it makes better sense to some of you now.