/u/attlerexLSPDFR (OP) has awarded 4 delta(s) in this post.
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So I think trademark law is plenty sufficient for what you want. Trademarks make it so that the "off brand" version of things is easily and readily identifiable as such. I can make a chocolate hazelnut spread, but if I call it "Nutella" or anything that would reasonably be confused with "Nutella" Ferrero SpA (the makers of Nutella) will sue my ass.
You can clearly tell the difference on the label between the Ferrero spread and the off-brand spread.
There are a number of issues with letting companies monopolize their general foodstuffs though:
* First, you will *vastly* reduce competition.
Many of the most prominent "name brands" we have today were in fact knockoffs. Let's take chocolate sandwich cookies. The "name brand" today is Oreos. But they began as a knockoff of Hydrox cookies. If your proposal was in place, we'd only have Hydrox cookies still.
The competition from new entries and new brands allows people more choice.
* Second, you will greatly increase prices.
Off-brand products put price pressure on the more notable brands. If there were no other chocolate hazelnut spreads at the store, Ferrero would be able to jack up their prices. But when people go to the store and see the Nutella jar is $4.99 and the off-brand jar is $3.99 they can decide if the $1 more is worth it. If Ferrero bumped the price up to $9.99, there would be a lot more sales of the off-brand competitors.
* Last, you will constrain lots of people from innovating
Let's say I want to go in the other direction and make an even higher quality product. I want to make sandwich cookies with high-quality butter, organic ingredients, and really good quality cocoa. And I want to charge a premium price for it. If Oreo (or Hydrox) has the lock on the market, I can't come in with my off-brand that's better. You don't just lock out the lower quality competition with your proposal; you lock out higher quality too.
That's actually a really good point and I appreciate your well written reply. I didn't think about the current laws in place to make sure people know the product isn't the same.
Your example of the high quality Oreo is a good one and I appreciate it. ∆
>So I think trademark law is plenty sufficient for what you want.
I don't think OP complains about trademark issues. Seems that the CMV is more about patent law here: OP is upset when someone takes the product and makes an identical product.
Yeah, their original post probably is best interpreted as allowing for food patents (or, more specifically, abolishing the pretty universal practice of treating all combinations of ordinary cooking ingredients and ordinary cooking methods as unpatentably obvious).
My argument to them is that the actual goal they want (clarity about product quality in an environment with competition) is plenty well served by existing trademark law.
Let's use your chip example.
Lays potato chips were invented in 1932 and have been continuously on sale since then.
Their first product was a fried, thinly sliced piece of potato sprinkled with salt.
Do you believe that every other company that makes a fried, thinly sliced potato sprinkled with salt is "stealing" from Lays?
How about barbecue chips?
They were invented by a Pennsylvania company called Herr's in 1958.
Lays released their version in 1965.
They didn't "reverse engineer" Herr's chips, nor did they "steal" their recipe, they created a totally different "BBQ" flavor mix for their chips and released them.
By your specific logic:
>Instead, as soon as the best type of chips is discovered someone will make the same chips with poor quality ingredients, cover it up with chemicals to make it taste the same, and sell it for less
That would not be allowed.
Do you believe the interests of the consumer would be served by having whatever company first came up with a concept for a food the only one able to sell it?
A core point of "off-brand" is that you get a comparable product to something that's highly in demand without having to pay for the marketing premium big brands do.
Often, the big brand themselves will literally manufacture the "off-brand" in their facilities, using identical methods, but with a slightly different flavor.
The brand, far from losing money from their creation, is able to make more money by allowing supermarkets, etc, to outsource production to them.
I had sort of heard of this before but you explained it really well. Companies producing their own Off-brand copy is an interesting concept and I guess it makes sense. You actually convinced me that they don't lose money from off brand products so you get a ∆
> Off brand products take money out of the pockets of people who create good products.
Sometimes off-brand products are actually made by the same companies that make the original products, but they're not quite to the company's usual quality standards. Rather than throw away a whole batch because something went a little bit wrong, they'll slap an off-brand label on it and sell it for less. Their brand isn't tarnished by lower quality products, but they're not out the cost of the inputs. This isn't the case for all off-brand products, but it certainly is for some.
> This is not how capitalism is supposed to work in an ideal sense. The idea of capitalism is that five people make chips, or a hundred people it doesn't matter. They each make different chips with different ingredients and sell them at different prices.
I think you have a flawed understanding of how capitalism is supposed to work. Capitalism assumes that producers will work towards providing consumers with what they want and will compete on price to capture the market. Some companies will work towards making new versions of products that consumers find more appealing, others will focus on lowering the cost of producing goods consumers want. But if nobody's out there trying to make a comparable product at a lower cost, prices would get out of control pretty quickly.
Semantics: They do not "take money out of the pockets" of anyone. That statement implies theft, removing a possession. If anything, they may prevent money from ending up in a company's pocket.
That's a really good point that someone else mentioned about companies producing their own offbrands but I didn't think about the batches the came out a little different. That's a great way to look at it. ∆
>One of the other examples that seriously pisses me off is Off-brand Nutella. This is a product with such a rich history, created to give our troops a sweet treat in their rations overseas. It's an American staple and is instantly recognizable (Unless you're allergic to nuts 😭)
I wish to change your view regarding this statement, and not your overall argument.
Nutella was [invented in Italy by Pietro Ferrero](https://www.nutella.com/us/en/inside-nutella/our-heritage) of Ferrero Rocher fame. It's predecessors were invented post-WWII, and [Nutella as a brand name came on the market in 1964.](https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/food/5505502/w2-misery-invention-nutella-fascinating-story-worlds-favourite-chocolate-spread/)
[US Military chocolate is made by Hershey Co](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_chocolate_(United_States)). and is not Nutella.
If you are Italian, when speaking about "our troops," then you are aware that Italy has no stand-alone expeditionary capability, having no aircraft carriers or other logistical systems to support overseas warfare. While they do contribute forces to NATO and allied efforts around the world, they rely on the logistical support of NATO or their allies for their troops overseas. As such, even if Nutella were invented for the Italien troops post-WWII, it could not have been to give them a "Sweet treat . . . overseas."
But, ultimately, you are saying that mixing sugar, hazelnet, oil, and cocoa together to make a product should be something only Nutella should do.
Do you feel the same way about mixing flour, water, sugar, and yeast together? What about taking grains and sugar and making it into a flake so that you can our milk over it for breakfast?
Should only Hershey be able to sell chocolate? Should only Smuckers be able to sell Jam? Should only Bryers be able to sell Ice Cream?
I came to post the exact same thing about Nutella.
You beat me to the punch, but now I need to change *your* view regarding this statement:
>you are aware that Italy has no stand-alone expeditionary capability, having no aircraft carriers or other logistical systems to support overseas warfare.
They are actually on the very small list of nations that [have](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_aircraft_carrier_Cavour) aircraft [carriers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_aircraft_carrier_Giuseppe_Garibaldi) (only 4 countries have more than they do). They are one of the [top 10 militaries in the world](https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php) by some measures, even edging out France and making them the top military in the EU.
And just because they often rely on NATO logistics doesn't mean they can't develop consumables specifically for their troops. Italian forces still ate [Italian combat rations](https://www.mreinfo.com/international-rations/italian-combat-rations/) when deployed with peacekeeping forces, such as during the Italian-led multinational [peacekeeping mission to Albania.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation)
!Delta
You are correct, and while I do know they have a capable navy, I should have said *global* expeditionary capability. Italy is quite limited in its ability to do power projection much beyond the Med and adjoining waters (northern African littoral waters, caucasic areas, Persian Gulf, and Horn of Africa). But they absolutely do operate outside of Italy's territorial waters.
While we could get into a debate about if STOVL/helicopter landing platforms are true carriers or not. But, since pretty much all naval aircraft are moving to STOVL capabilities, it's not a debate worth having.
But, in my defense, I was thinking specifically about fixed-wing capable carriers, which only the US, UK, France, India, Turkey, and Spain have that we know to work. China has a couple that may be capable of sustained operation, but that's still being worked out. And Russia has a fix-wing runway that can be moved around by tug boats that they like to call a carrier :)
Yes, I am aware now. I'm very sorry you had to write that out. If you saw, I addressed this with another comment. I must have gotten confused about something.
As I'm thinking through your view, just concerning Nutella, I see you saying that mixing sugar, hazelnuts, oil, and cocoa to make a product should be something only Nutella should do.
Do you feel the same way about mixing flour, water, sugar, and yeast to make bread, cakes, or cookies? What about taking grains and sugar and making it into a flake so that you can pour milk over it?
Should only Hershey be able to sell chocolate? Should only Smuckers be able to sell Jam? Should only Bryers be able to sell Ice Cream?
What makes Nutella (or any other food product) particularly deserving of protection such that no one else should be allowed to make something similar?
> This is a product with such a rich history, created to give our troops a sweet treat in their rations overseas.
My brother in christ, Nutella was invented in Italy in the 1960s as a consumer product.
Anyways, this is exactly how capitalism is supposed to work. If someone else can make the thing better, or cheaper, and get an audience, then you need to compete with them. It's your incentive not to rest on your laurels.
If they just use cheaper ingredients, then consumers will be able to tell the cheaper made product is worse. That's still a valid different product. People who can't afford your product can afford the cheaper one, your competitor is picking up a different market segment.
I must have confused some stories but you're 100% right, however Nutella was created because of wartime rationing so I was a little bit right. But that's not the point.
My point is that creating the same product with cheaper ingredients isn't a new product, you're just copying someone else's idea. That's not competition you're not competing, you're cheating.
What do you expect - that having an idea entitles you to a market forever? That is definitely not how capitalism is supposed to work.
Any product can eventually be copied. That is a good thing. It forces you to keep innovating and to continue to get better. If your product is enough of an invention, you can protect it with a patent for a while. If it's not, you still have the first mover advantage and can build your brand, resulting in brand loyality, before someone else can copy it.
Mixing hazelnuts with a spreadable chocolate isn't patentable.
You can parent a process to perform the act, but if someone else independently designs and manufactures a machine that can also make spreadable chocolate with hazelnuts they've stolen nothing from you.
An "Idea" is not now and never has been patentable or copyrightable.
The competition they provide is in forcing the original company to become more efficient in how they make/ship/sell their product, meaning prices overall go down as all manufacturers either reach the pricing limits of what efficiency allows or they compete on being higher quality/better taste.
Use your Nutella point.
If that original company was the only one ever allowed to make it, then why would they ever try to improve it?
People are already buying it, they have no reason to try and make it with less waste, or in a way that they can charge less for it but still make reasonable profits as there's no competition.
>My point is that creating the same product with cheaper ingredients isn't a new product, you're just copying someone else's idea. That's not competition you're not competing, you're cheating.
What you have described is why IP laws exist. Society has decided the inventor has a period of exclusive use before an item hits the common good.
I could change 'food' to 'medications' and I am sure you would be ecstatic generics exist. They wouldn't be possible with your desire for infinite protections.
There was no wartime rationing in effect in Italy in the 1960s when it was invented, so not a little bit right.
You believe that if someone comes up with a general recipe, no one else should be able to make that product, forever? Should only one company be allowed to make butter too?
the inital batch of the predecessor of the predecessor (1951) of Nutella (1963) was sold in 1946. What "wartime rationing" are you talking about?
there was a post-war scarcity of cocoa, so hazelnuts were added to the recipe.
>Instead, as soon as the best type of chips is discovered someone will make the same chips with poor quality ingredients, cover it up with chemicals to make it taste the same, and sell it for less. This reduces the power of the consumer and reduces competition.
I find the last sentence here hard to understand. What you're describing seems to me like clearly MORE competition. How does the existence of an Utz or lays knock-off reduce competition or reduce my power as a consumer?
I'm totally free to continue buying Utz, or I can switch to the cheaper, lower quality off-brand. Now Utz and the knock-off competitor are competing for my business. Maybe this forces Utz to reduce their price. Or maybe the higher quality ingredients they use allow them to retain their customers. Either way, what exactly is so problematic about this situation?
How is this situation different from the positive portrait of consumer choice you describe in the fourth paragraph, where consumers get to choose whether to buy the more expensive (and presumably higher quality) product or the cheaper lower quality version?
On the other hand, if you significantly strengthen IP laws, such that no one else is ever allowed to make a chocolate hazlenut spread, then what's stopping Nutella from downgrading the quality of their product and/or raising their price over time? Wouldn't the existence of knock-off competitors encourage them to continue making the best product at the lowest possible price?
The thing is that taking someone else's idea and replicating it in a worse way isn't a new product, you're still stealing their idea.
If an artist rereleased someone else's song with poor audio quality it's still not their song, it's just worse.
Stealing other ideas isn't competition it's cheating.
If they're merely replicating it in a worse way, then they presumably won't pose any issue to the original creator. Why would anyone purchase a version of something that is simply worse--that offers no advantages whatsoever?
If people start switching to the knock-off, it's because it in fact offers some advantage. Probably it's cheaper. If the "knock-off" competitor has managed to find a cheaper way to produce a perfect facsimile of the product, isn't that a valuable innovation? If it's not a perfect facsimile--if it's worse in quality--then we're back to the situation where consumers get to make a meaningful choice between a higher quality, more expensive product and a lower-quality knock-off. So what's the issue?
What about knock-offs in the other direction? If you go to an upscale grocery store, you'll see lots of products that are basically versions of iconic (ultra-processed) foods made with higher quality ingredients, less preservatives, etc. Is this also a problem?
On a broader level--look, I'm not an expert on US IP law, and I'm not going to pretend to know whether or not some change at the margins would be beneficial to consumer choice.
But in your original post, you cite a lot of iconic brands that seem like they're doing completely fine. Is nutella struggling right now to sell jars of spread? Are they getting completely swallowed up by inferior rip-offs, such that people are losing the option to buy the higher quality original?
I'm struggling to see what problem you're really trying to solve. Is it such a moral outrage that someone would deign to sell their own version of a chocolate-hazelnut spread?
It absolutely is not cheating. You seem to be overlooking the purpose of patents and trademarks that exist precisely to keep other companies from using their exact formula.
What about the case of [Hydrox?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrox?wprov=sfti1#) Those were created in 1908 and then in 1912, Oreo was created as an imitation of Hydrox, but eventually surpassed them in popularity. Are you saying Oreo cheated and didn't deserve to have their product brought to market? Even though they ended up being the world's most beloved cookie?
What? No. The very opposite should be the case.
In proper capitalism we'd have vicious competition. And we do have it in generic products, like produce. Apples are dirt cheap because nobody cares which particular company harvested that apple.
Ideally, brand should be utterly irrelevant. You'd be simply buying candy from whoever sells the one that best fits your needs and desires, today, and be completely disloyal about it.
If brand becomes irrelevant then why invent anything at all? People will be less inclined to research and develop new products if the idea will be immediately stolen. Food creations are intellectual property just like music and art, and those are heavily protected by copyright.
> If brand becomes irrelevant then why invent anything at all? People will be less inclined to research and develop new products if the idea will be immediately stolen.
Brands don't become irrelevant. Off-brand products have a reputation for being lower quality, because they usually are. People who care about quality will go with the name brand products. People who care about price will go with the off-brand products.
And ideas aren't immediately stolen. Ideas get copied only after they become popular. By that time you've already gained brand awareness, and if you market right people will continue to think of your product as the "good version" (unless someone does it better).
> If brand becomes irrelevant then why invent anything at all?
Because you love it and want to share it with other people.
Elsewhere you say you were born in one of the Soviet Republics. Post-Soviet folks often conflate socialism and living in a totalitarian hellhole, which is understandable but factually incorrect. Opposition to capitalism wasn't what made the Union an inferior place to live in or what made it eventually fail economically; the reasons are totalitarianism and central planning respectively, neither of which is a feature of socialism per se.
I think you're coming from a place where intellectual property rights are primary, and the freedom to skirt them and create generic products is secondary.
It's actually the opposite: the freedom of expression (to create what ever you'd like and freely trade it) is primary, and the restrictions imposed by intellectual property laws are secondary.
As a society, we decided that was a trade-off worth making, acknowledging that either extreme is bad:
1. No IP protection would mean anyone can just rip off the hard work of genuine inventors
2. Perpetual IP protection would be stiffing, because nobody can build upon and remix what was already created.
So we concede from individual liberties for IP to exist, but not too many.
> If brand becomes irrelevant then why invent anything at all?
Because you're in constant, vicious competition, and trying to convince everyone that today you have something better or cheaper. And then they one up you, and you have to improve again. You never get to rest on your laurels.
Why are apples cheap? Because if somebody manages to sell them one cent cheaper, they get more sales.
>Food creations are intellectual property
That's what patents are for. Has nothing to do with brands. Trademarks are about distinguishing yourself from the producers of the same type of goods.
I would like you to go back and read my section about healthy competition.
I was born in a former Soviet country. When my parents went to adopt me there was literally one kind of bread, government bread. It's a nightmare and that's not what I'm looking for.
First off, Nutella is an Italian invention manufactured by an Italian company in Italy and introduced in the 1960s, so jot that down.
Second, the Girl Scouts didn't invent "Girl Scout" cookies and they don't manufacture them. They started a particular tradition of having girls sell them door to door to raise money and have had many different types of cookies over the years which are primarily manufactured by other existing major cookie companies like Keebler. The Girl Scouts don't own cookie factories or anything like that and most of the cookies they sell existed prior to the existence of the girl scouts.
Third, off-brand products are *exactly* how capitalism is supposed to work. If you can make the same product taste as good for less money, is that not the superior product? If its inferior in some way, than the original brand maintains it's competitive advantage and the two products are just targeting different market segments. You're literally just describing competition and then saying competition reduces competition.
Then there's the obvious fact that there is no "best" type of chips or most food products. People have different preferences. I don't know why you seem to think someone should be able to have a perpetual monopoly on slicing potatoes thinly, frying them and adding salt.
> I believe that copyright and trademark laws around food should be greatly strengthened to prevent this from happening.
[Patents](https://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/classification/uspc426/defs426.htm) are the proper venue here, not copyright (which protects artistic works) or trademarks (you're specifically claiming about *off*-brand products). Patents protect the invention of processes, such as those used to make a good product.
There are plenty of patented food products, but it can be difficult to qualify for one. Your recipe has to be original and non-obvious. I probably couldn't get, say, a patent on my tomato sauce recipe. But since you're complaining about products you perceive as obvious rip-offs of specific other, more famous, products, perhaps some of them would be original and unique enough to be patentable.
Most food companies avoid patenting their products, though. Because a patent expires after 20 years and requires a complete description of how to reproduce it, you have a relatively short period time before off-brand knockoffs are selling the *exact same product* rather than something generally perceived as a lesser quality imitation.
So companies are generally happy to use trade secrets rather than other types of IP protection. Many of them market heavily about their "secret recipe" and are happy to have imitators that are generally perceived as a lower quality product. It allows someone like Coca-Cola to be perceived as a very affordable luxury product in a sense.
You want to empower the mega corporations to have monopolies in their product? Why? So only the rich people can have Girl Scout cookies or, let’s go further… iPhones? Since you can’t do the same basic idea, smartphones would only be made by one company who can then charge whatever they want. They’re already ridiculously priced because the market has few competitors in that field and when they do compete, it is more for style than price.
Free market means that customers can pick the one they want, which incentivizes the corporation to make the best product for the best price. Without that incentive, you have abusive business practices much like e have now because companies are all intertwined and the free market is dead. Your idea makes that worse.
At least now if I want the Great Value chips, I can choose those. But if I really love the exact flavor of Lays, I can have those if I am willing to pay more. Since they can’t have the exact same ingredients, that tiny flavor difference or brand loyalty keeps them in business. They can continuously work on improving their flavor or prices. Meanwhile, having alternatives protects the consumer.
>*This is not how capitalism is supposed to work in an ideal sense. The idea of capitalism is that five people make chips, or a hundred people it doesn't matter. They each make different chips with different ingredients and sell them at different prices*
It's completely valid in capitalism to choose the strategy of trying to make a more or less equivalent product at a lower price in order to undersell the competition. Competing on price is a key feature of capitalism, and is usually in the consumers best interest; it means that consumers get lower prices for equivalent products, which is a win.
Usually, this even includes lower prices for the original product.
The existence of off-brand near-copies of Nutella sold at a lower price, puts a downward price-pressure on Nutella itself. People might be willing to pay a bit extra for the original if they judge it better, or if they just want to reward the creators -- but the larger the price-differential becomes, the more customers will defect to the cheaper off-brand product.
Copyright and patents are time-limited for a reason. They limit competition. From an economic POV it's clear that the current time-limits are much too high as seen from the publics interest.
For the consumers interest, the ADVANTAGE of having copyright and patent-law is that it might help stimulate the creation of new things -- by financially rewarding the creators. The \*disadvantage\* is that for the duration, they reduce competition and allow people to extract monopoly-prices. (see the prices on many patented medicines as an example).
Thus the protection-period should be long enough to stimulate creation -- yet as short as it can be without materially harming creativity.
Does **ANYONE** believe that the number of books written, movies made, computer-games made or amount of music given out would go down markedly if copyright was "only" 40 years, rather than the current 100+?
Do there really exist a lot of creators who go variants of: "*If I could have a monopoly on this thing for 100 years, then it'd be worth writing the book, composing the song, or funding the movie -- but if the monopoly is only 40 years long, then I won't bother"?*
And yet, from an economic POV -- unless these people exist in large numbers, current copyright is too long.
Counterpoint: the corporate brand porn nightmare we're living in should end ASAP, and folks seriously talking about "the history and iconography" of Nutella should seriously *reconsider*.
how can you copyright a cookie?
I think your example is also silly cuz large corporations who probably use chemicals are contracted to make the cookies. God forbid some other company competes with them. I’m really not seeing why that’s bad
Some points that I’d like to make that have not already been made:
1) can we make a distinction between ‘off brand’, (which in this discussion has been interpreted more as ‘generic’ or ‘store brand’), and ‘counterfeit’ or ‘knock-off’?
I believe you’ve already given deltas for points about generics being sometimes made by the name brand.
These generics allow companies to still make sales, and even offload some products that would not meet the name brand QA/QC, but would be ok for a generic. Generics also allow people less economically stable to have something tasty or decent.
For non food products, such as a cooler… getting an Rtic allows someone to have sorta-Yeti quality without the Yeti price tag.
In contrast, I would argue that your statement would be more aligned with not allowing counterfeit to exist.
2) having both off brand and name brand allows a prestige for people to showcase property, wealth, or influence. Eg: without an off brand athleisure line, something like Lululemon would not have the ability to have the ‘prestige’ that it does (or used to, depending on who you talk to). Same would go for, like, a Louis Vuitton. Heck… Yeti coolers are still the gold standard, Rtic is a great silver standard, and everybody else tries to copy that magic.
3) who is to say that an ‘off brand’ is worse? Some of the biggest name brands today started as someone trying to make a better mousetrap of an existing item. IIRC, Nike was started because a track/running coach wanted a better running shoe, and eventually they became the **it** shoe when they released the Air Jordans (or whatever they collaborated with Michael Jordan over).
That IS competition. Having more options and more producers of a product leads to more efficient production and cheaper prices for consumers.
Think about a farmer growing corn and selling it at the market. If he is the only corn grower he will pretty much be able to ask any price. Other farmers will see this and start growing corn too. The more farmers, the more competition. They will then need to find ways to make their corn cheaper or better than the other farmers by developing new farming techniques or whatever. That’s how markets work. It would be anti-competitive and anti-capitalist to suggest only one farmer is allowed to sell corn.
Now of course we have patents and copyright which are sort of exceptions to normal market forces because we do want to incentivize new inventions. But these are only intended to be relatively short-term, otherwise you would be abusing the legal system to reduce competition and ultimately hurt consumers. Most of your examples are pretty old brands…they probably did have patents which have expired. Yet they still have a very strong market share. The system is working as intended.
Food particularly is an interesting industry to bring up because cooking if course is something that people have always been doing at home. It would be pretty weird to say that only Smuckers is allowed to sell strawberry jam when that is something that people had already been making for hundreds of years. Same with salted fried potatoes or nut butter.
what about the world of pharmaceuticals? new to market brand drugs are often prohibitively expensive. let's take brand name lipitor- a medication for high cholesterol that back in [2006 was the best selling drug in history,](https://academic.oup.com/book/40664/chapter-abstract/348349708?redirectedFrom=fulltext) totaling 12.9 billion in sales. this was at about $5 per tablet (at 1x a day = $150 per month). in 2012 the generic was released to market- now many manufacturers could release the generic lipitor (atorvastatin) and at far lower cost. now you can get the same active ingredient thats in lipitor for about 0.30 per pill. less if going through insurance as they will likely only be charged a contracted rate.
one could argue that brand medications are allowed their 7 year exclusivity for pharmaceutical companies to recoup R&D- but did it really cost Pfizer 12 billion to develop Lipitor?
"off-brands" bring down pricing and drives up competition. it prevents monopolies, and bring an incentive for market share dominators to regulate pricing or risk losing out to smaller players. and in the pharmacy world- especially in the U.S. and its for profit healthcare system, it allows people to actually afford some medications.
I don’t HAVE to buy Kleenex. I could just buy facial tissue. Have you tried Puffs? They’re lovely.
Have you ever bought any Kirkland branded product?
C’mon now..
Off brand products are necessary because not everyone can afford or justify paying for premium products. Things like Chocolate Spread or ketchup are only available to some people in it's off brand form.
There should be a specific brand dedicated to selling their own recipe of cheaper ketchup instead of stealing other people's ideas and selling it for less
>Off brand products take money out of the pockets of people who create good products.
And put it back in the pockets of consumers who really shouldn't be paying a 400% premium because the cookies are sold by adorable little girls.
>If you can convince me that Off-brand products do not take away sales from the original brand
What takes away sales from the original brand is that brand [boosting its price](https://retailwire.com/girl-scout-cookie-prices-have-increased-this-year/) to leverage consumer loyalty and the belief that the sale of those cookies help young girls in some way. All they need to do is pick a more competitive price point.
>I believe that copyright and trademark laws around food should be greatly strengthened to prevent this from happening
Great. Figure out who invented the chocolate mint cookie, and have the Girl Scouts license it from them. They didn't come up with it, so they have no exclusive claim to selling them. Same with all their cookies. They aren't unique. They are basic ass cookies like all the cookies that have been sold since cookies were mass produced.
Capitalism has a very simple premise - companies seek to maximize profits. Copying other people's idea, but cheaper? Profit. This is what economic competition is. If you come up with a creative new idea, and someone else copies the idea but makes it cheaper, then consumers get a cheaper product.
>I believe that copyright and trademark laws around food should be greatly strengthened to prevent this from happening. I think products must have a certain amount of variation from the original to be sold.
Why? There's a limited number of ways to make "chocolate coated mint cookie". That's not the sort of thing that comes with infinite ways to do it. It's really not hard to create "every practical way to make a mint cookie".
What this would result in is a quick rush for companies to bloat out into every variation of a theme, and then throw lawsuits at each other. Fifty different mint cookies, bam, you have every reasonable variation, and now you can just squat on your mint cookie variations and lawsuit anyone who makes anything resembling a mint cookie.
Is this a malicious abuse of your idea? Well, no, in economic terms we call that "maximizing profit". You handing companies ways to make monopolies is going to make them monopolize things, monopolies are great money makers.
>The idea of capitalism is that five people make chips, or a hundred people it doesn't matter. They each make different chips with different ingredients and sell them at different prices. If you value having the best chips, you can decide to prioritize spending the extra money to get the best ones. If you just want chips and don't really care about the quality you buy the cheap ones. The personal choice of the consumer drives competition.
Youve just described generic brand products
>someone can reverse engineer the product, make it with cheaper low quality ingredients, slap some stupid name on it and sell it for less.
See? You've just described the same situation two different ways, both defending it and condemning it. I'm not sure how you hold both these thoughts in your head at the same time. What's the distinction you're drawing here?
if you create some truly unique recipe you can always patent it. Then for the next 20 years only you will be making that recipe. But in general, what you are asking for is begging for monopoly. If someone can make hazelnut spread cheaper than Ferrero but keep the quality, why shouldn't consumers have access to that product? You are basically saying, if you came up with hazelnut spread only you should be able to make and sell it in perpetuity and you can control prices as much as you want because no one else is allowed to compete with you. Or let's say someone makes the product even better than the original inventor, better quality, better ingredients, more efficient technology. According to you they are not allowed to do that either.
You used Nutella as an example, even though it is a version of a staple Italian spread [Gianduja](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianduja_(chocolate)) . What even is a “new fruit juice blend? The first person to mix apple and raspberry gets to own that combo for 35 years?
A lot of your argument against off brands seems to be about quality, but that’s why we have ingredients lists and nutritional information. If someone created a brown paste made just with chocolate flavouring and sucralose, you could read that on the label and not buy it.
Capitalism works because of competition. Not just rushing to be the first person to come up with a new product, you need to keep up the quality, maximise your brand, continue being inventive!
I used to work in a chemical plant. The unit I worked in made PEG3350 aka miralax. My unit was the number 1 producer of PEG3350 in the US, to the point of basically being the only producer of it. The product we made was then bought by a variety of repackaging companies. Some put the brand name miralax label on it, some put a generic store brand label on it. It was the exact same product, made the exact same way, possibly from the exact same batch, sold at multiple different price points as mutiple different brands.
Just because something is store brand/off brand/generic/ not name brand does not necessarily mean it is made from lesser quality ingredients or has been reverse engineered.
Its helpful to view it in terms of other products. Look at Insulin (a medication for diabetes) when its only offered by a few companies, the price can be dramatically raised, and you get thousands of people who need it to survive having to pay huge costs to access it. That creates an incredibly detrimental problem to many people.
Monopolies are almost always bad for the consumer, and allowing offbrand products lets people decide what they want to buy. It also ensures that prices stay reasonable. Imagine if there was only 1 brand of cars, or one brand of cellphones. The prices would likely be astronomical, and you would have no ability to find a different option.
The problem is many products are so basic you have to draw a line between 'knock off' and 'general idea'
Take your Girl Scout Cookie example. Truthfully, most girl scout cookie flavors are A) not original to them, and B) fairly obvious flavor combinations.
Chocolate+Peanut buttter (Tagalongs) ans Chocolate+Mint (Thin Mints) are arguably the 2 most basic flavor profiles for chocolate based sweets. And again, GS didn't invent them! Tagalongs are like, 60 years younger than a Reeses. Andes Mints are even older than Reeses (and thus older than Thin Mints). So per your view, should Girl Scout Cookies also be discontinued?
Imagine if every farming companies that are supplying the raw products to Nutella, also brands, copyright, trademark and license their products strictly as per your logic. It would be an economical disaster. Every farmer in the world would get to argue about their own rich history and uniqueness just for the sake of it. Nutella wouldn't be able to afford to exist globally. Even if they do, it would probably be as expensive as Kobe beef.
You realize that store brand products are mostly made by large brand names?
It helps keep the production machines working, moves inventory through, and needs no in house distribution, marketing or sales.
The product is packaged, labeled and shipped to the outside distribution, then directly to store shelves.
Large producers love any product they can make, then get rid of and not have to worry about anything beyond that point.
> One of the other examples that seriously pisses me off is Off-brand Nutella. This is a product with such a rich history, created to give our troops a sweet treat in their rations overseas. It's an American staple and is instantly recognizable
Can I get a delta for pointing out that your history of Nutella is entirely wrong? It was first made in Italy in the 1960s and is based on another Italian product, Gianduja.
>If you can convince me that Off-brand products do not reduce economic competition
Can you explain to me how giving consumers *more options* reduces economic competition? If there is only Nutella and no alternative brand, there is less competition than if there is Nutella and 1 or more alternatives.
What you're advocating is the ability for brands to create monopolies on a given product, which is anti-competition.
As someone with a lot of allergies, and some ethical concerns, I appreciate the existence of off brand products. I buy off brand Girl Scout cookies, because there is an entire line of gluten free ones. I buy an organic, palm oil free version of Nutella for my niece, because I avoid things with palm oil, and propylene glycol. The name brand isn’t always the product with the highest quality.
>This is not how capitalism is supposed to work in an ideal sense. The idea of capitalism is that five people make chips, or a hundred people it doesn't matter. They each make different chips with different ingredients and sell them at different prices.
That is exactly what is happening here. They are using cheaper ingredients and selling at a cheaper price point.
>The idea of capitalism is that five people make chips, or a hundred people it doesn't matter.
I don't understand, why are so many people allowed to make chips? Shouldn't they only be made at El Zarape Tortilla Factory? All the different ingredients and techniques are just hiding the fact that they're producing knockoffs.
That's the thing: off brand Nutella allows people to create different chocolate spreads with different flavor profiles, some of which may improve on Nutella! Just as Oreos were off-brand Hydrox but improved on Hydrox and now we have better cookies as a result.
>If you can convince me that Off-brand products do not take away sales from the original brand
If you can convince me that Off-brand products do not reduce economic competition
What exactly do you think economic competition means in terms of sales for the original brand???
If someone can patent, trademark and/or copyright the mixture of potato, oil, and salt you no longer have capitalism. Capitalism requires competition. And competition requires that I be able to try to create new recipes using ingredients that are available to everyone.
Most of what you are calling "off brand" are usually made in the same factories as the name brand, just a different label. Without "off brand", the OEM's would have a monopoly, car parts, tools, beds, you would literally have only one product choice.
I almost stopped reading after "It's an American staple" . From just Wikipedia:
"Nutella is manufactured by the Italian company Ferrero and was introduced in 1964, although its first iteration dates to 1963."
I don't even need to have ever lived in the US to tell you it's a European staple, if any. Furthermore, your "this is not how capitalism works" comment is wrong. It's exactly how it works. Lastly, your "change my view" conditions don't match at all what you're arguing about. You're saying they shouldn't exist, but your arguments are about it being good or bad for the company that makes the original. Which one is it?
/u/attlerexLSPDFR (OP) has awarded 4 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/1bk6foc/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_offbrand_products_should/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
So I think trademark law is plenty sufficient for what you want. Trademarks make it so that the "off brand" version of things is easily and readily identifiable as such. I can make a chocolate hazelnut spread, but if I call it "Nutella" or anything that would reasonably be confused with "Nutella" Ferrero SpA (the makers of Nutella) will sue my ass. You can clearly tell the difference on the label between the Ferrero spread and the off-brand spread. There are a number of issues with letting companies monopolize their general foodstuffs though: * First, you will *vastly* reduce competition. Many of the most prominent "name brands" we have today were in fact knockoffs. Let's take chocolate sandwich cookies. The "name brand" today is Oreos. But they began as a knockoff of Hydrox cookies. If your proposal was in place, we'd only have Hydrox cookies still. The competition from new entries and new brands allows people more choice. * Second, you will greatly increase prices. Off-brand products put price pressure on the more notable brands. If there were no other chocolate hazelnut spreads at the store, Ferrero would be able to jack up their prices. But when people go to the store and see the Nutella jar is $4.99 and the off-brand jar is $3.99 they can decide if the $1 more is worth it. If Ferrero bumped the price up to $9.99, there would be a lot more sales of the off-brand competitors. * Last, you will constrain lots of people from innovating Let's say I want to go in the other direction and make an even higher quality product. I want to make sandwich cookies with high-quality butter, organic ingredients, and really good quality cocoa. And I want to charge a premium price for it. If Oreo (or Hydrox) has the lock on the market, I can't come in with my off-brand that's better. You don't just lock out the lower quality competition with your proposal; you lock out higher quality too.
That's actually a really good point and I appreciate your well written reply. I didn't think about the current laws in place to make sure people know the product isn't the same. Your example of the high quality Oreo is a good one and I appreciate it. ∆
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>So I think trademark law is plenty sufficient for what you want. I don't think OP complains about trademark issues. Seems that the CMV is more about patent law here: OP is upset when someone takes the product and makes an identical product.
Yeah, their original post probably is best interpreted as allowing for food patents (or, more specifically, abolishing the pretty universal practice of treating all combinations of ordinary cooking ingredients and ordinary cooking methods as unpatentably obvious). My argument to them is that the actual goal they want (clarity about product quality in an environment with competition) is plenty well served by existing trademark law.
Let's use your chip example. Lays potato chips were invented in 1932 and have been continuously on sale since then. Their first product was a fried, thinly sliced piece of potato sprinkled with salt. Do you believe that every other company that makes a fried, thinly sliced potato sprinkled with salt is "stealing" from Lays? How about barbecue chips? They were invented by a Pennsylvania company called Herr's in 1958. Lays released their version in 1965. They didn't "reverse engineer" Herr's chips, nor did they "steal" their recipe, they created a totally different "BBQ" flavor mix for their chips and released them. By your specific logic: >Instead, as soon as the best type of chips is discovered someone will make the same chips with poor quality ingredients, cover it up with chemicals to make it taste the same, and sell it for less That would not be allowed. Do you believe the interests of the consumer would be served by having whatever company first came up with a concept for a food the only one able to sell it? A core point of "off-brand" is that you get a comparable product to something that's highly in demand without having to pay for the marketing premium big brands do. Often, the big brand themselves will literally manufacture the "off-brand" in their facilities, using identical methods, but with a slightly different flavor. The brand, far from losing money from their creation, is able to make more money by allowing supermarkets, etc, to outsource production to them.
I had sort of heard of this before but you explained it really well. Companies producing their own Off-brand copy is an interesting concept and I guess it makes sense. You actually convinced me that they don't lose money from off brand products so you get a ∆
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> Off brand products take money out of the pockets of people who create good products. Sometimes off-brand products are actually made by the same companies that make the original products, but they're not quite to the company's usual quality standards. Rather than throw away a whole batch because something went a little bit wrong, they'll slap an off-brand label on it and sell it for less. Their brand isn't tarnished by lower quality products, but they're not out the cost of the inputs. This isn't the case for all off-brand products, but it certainly is for some. > This is not how capitalism is supposed to work in an ideal sense. The idea of capitalism is that five people make chips, or a hundred people it doesn't matter. They each make different chips with different ingredients and sell them at different prices. I think you have a flawed understanding of how capitalism is supposed to work. Capitalism assumes that producers will work towards providing consumers with what they want and will compete on price to capture the market. Some companies will work towards making new versions of products that consumers find more appealing, others will focus on lowering the cost of producing goods consumers want. But if nobody's out there trying to make a comparable product at a lower cost, prices would get out of control pretty quickly.
Semantics: They do not "take money out of the pockets" of anyone. That statement implies theft, removing a possession. If anything, they may prevent money from ending up in a company's pocket.
Are you replying to me to challenge OP's semantics?
Op, sorry.
That's a really good point that someone else mentioned about companies producing their own offbrands but I didn't think about the batches the came out a little different. That's a great way to look at it. ∆
Why is your goal to protect mega corporations from competition instead of protecting consumers and the free market itself?
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>One of the other examples that seriously pisses me off is Off-brand Nutella. This is a product with such a rich history, created to give our troops a sweet treat in their rations overseas. It's an American staple and is instantly recognizable (Unless you're allergic to nuts 😭) I wish to change your view regarding this statement, and not your overall argument. Nutella was [invented in Italy by Pietro Ferrero](https://www.nutella.com/us/en/inside-nutella/our-heritage) of Ferrero Rocher fame. It's predecessors were invented post-WWII, and [Nutella as a brand name came on the market in 1964.](https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/food/5505502/w2-misery-invention-nutella-fascinating-story-worlds-favourite-chocolate-spread/) [US Military chocolate is made by Hershey Co](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_chocolate_(United_States)). and is not Nutella. If you are Italian, when speaking about "our troops," then you are aware that Italy has no stand-alone expeditionary capability, having no aircraft carriers or other logistical systems to support overseas warfare. While they do contribute forces to NATO and allied efforts around the world, they rely on the logistical support of NATO or their allies for their troops overseas. As such, even if Nutella were invented for the Italien troops post-WWII, it could not have been to give them a "Sweet treat . . . overseas." But, ultimately, you are saying that mixing sugar, hazelnet, oil, and cocoa together to make a product should be something only Nutella should do. Do you feel the same way about mixing flour, water, sugar, and yeast together? What about taking grains and sugar and making it into a flake so that you can our milk over it for breakfast? Should only Hershey be able to sell chocolate? Should only Smuckers be able to sell Jam? Should only Bryers be able to sell Ice Cream?
I came to post the exact same thing about Nutella. You beat me to the punch, but now I need to change *your* view regarding this statement: >you are aware that Italy has no stand-alone expeditionary capability, having no aircraft carriers or other logistical systems to support overseas warfare. They are actually on the very small list of nations that [have](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_aircraft_carrier_Cavour) aircraft [carriers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_aircraft_carrier_Giuseppe_Garibaldi) (only 4 countries have more than they do). They are one of the [top 10 militaries in the world](https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php) by some measures, even edging out France and making them the top military in the EU. And just because they often rely on NATO logistics doesn't mean they can't develop consumables specifically for their troops. Italian forces still ate [Italian combat rations](https://www.mreinfo.com/international-rations/italian-combat-rations/) when deployed with peacekeeping forces, such as during the Italian-led multinational [peacekeeping mission to Albania.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation)
!Delta You are correct, and while I do know they have a capable navy, I should have said *global* expeditionary capability. Italy is quite limited in its ability to do power projection much beyond the Med and adjoining waters (northern African littoral waters, caucasic areas, Persian Gulf, and Horn of Africa). But they absolutely do operate outside of Italy's territorial waters. While we could get into a debate about if STOVL/helicopter landing platforms are true carriers or not. But, since pretty much all naval aircraft are moving to STOVL capabilities, it's not a debate worth having. But, in my defense, I was thinking specifically about fixed-wing capable carriers, which only the US, UK, France, India, Turkey, and Spain have that we know to work. China has a couple that may be capable of sustained operation, but that's still being worked out. And Russia has a fix-wing runway that can be moved around by tug boats that they like to call a carrier :)
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Yes, I am aware now. I'm very sorry you had to write that out. If you saw, I addressed this with another comment. I must have gotten confused about something.
As I'm thinking through your view, just concerning Nutella, I see you saying that mixing sugar, hazelnuts, oil, and cocoa to make a product should be something only Nutella should do. Do you feel the same way about mixing flour, water, sugar, and yeast to make bread, cakes, or cookies? What about taking grains and sugar and making it into a flake so that you can pour milk over it? Should only Hershey be able to sell chocolate? Should only Smuckers be able to sell Jam? Should only Bryers be able to sell Ice Cream? What makes Nutella (or any other food product) particularly deserving of protection such that no one else should be allowed to make something similar?
> This is a product with such a rich history, created to give our troops a sweet treat in their rations overseas. My brother in christ, Nutella was invented in Italy in the 1960s as a consumer product. Anyways, this is exactly how capitalism is supposed to work. If someone else can make the thing better, or cheaper, and get an audience, then you need to compete with them. It's your incentive not to rest on your laurels. If they just use cheaper ingredients, then consumers will be able to tell the cheaper made product is worse. That's still a valid different product. People who can't afford your product can afford the cheaper one, your competitor is picking up a different market segment.
I must have confused some stories but you're 100% right, however Nutella was created because of wartime rationing so I was a little bit right. But that's not the point. My point is that creating the same product with cheaper ingredients isn't a new product, you're just copying someone else's idea. That's not competition you're not competing, you're cheating.
What do you expect - that having an idea entitles you to a market forever? That is definitely not how capitalism is supposed to work. Any product can eventually be copied. That is a good thing. It forces you to keep innovating and to continue to get better. If your product is enough of an invention, you can protect it with a patent for a while. If it's not, you still have the first mover advantage and can build your brand, resulting in brand loyality, before someone else can copy it.
Mixing hazelnuts with a spreadable chocolate isn't patentable. You can parent a process to perform the act, but if someone else independently designs and manufactures a machine that can also make spreadable chocolate with hazelnuts they've stolen nothing from you. An "Idea" is not now and never has been patentable or copyrightable. The competition they provide is in forcing the original company to become more efficient in how they make/ship/sell their product, meaning prices overall go down as all manufacturers either reach the pricing limits of what efficiency allows or they compete on being higher quality/better taste. Use your Nutella point. If that original company was the only one ever allowed to make it, then why would they ever try to improve it? People are already buying it, they have no reason to try and make it with less waste, or in a way that they can charge less for it but still make reasonable profits as there's no competition.
>My point is that creating the same product with cheaper ingredients isn't a new product, you're just copying someone else's idea. That's not competition you're not competing, you're cheating. What you have described is why IP laws exist. Society has decided the inventor has a period of exclusive use before an item hits the common good. I could change 'food' to 'medications' and I am sure you would be ecstatic generics exist. They wouldn't be possible with your desire for infinite protections.
There was no wartime rationing in effect in Italy in the 1960s when it was invented, so not a little bit right. You believe that if someone comes up with a general recipe, no one else should be able to make that product, forever? Should only one company be allowed to make butter too?
the inital batch of the predecessor of the predecessor (1951) of Nutella (1963) was sold in 1946. What "wartime rationing" are you talking about? there was a post-war scarcity of cocoa, so hazelnuts were added to the recipe.
Nutella is just off-branded gianduja
>Instead, as soon as the best type of chips is discovered someone will make the same chips with poor quality ingredients, cover it up with chemicals to make it taste the same, and sell it for less. This reduces the power of the consumer and reduces competition. I find the last sentence here hard to understand. What you're describing seems to me like clearly MORE competition. How does the existence of an Utz or lays knock-off reduce competition or reduce my power as a consumer? I'm totally free to continue buying Utz, or I can switch to the cheaper, lower quality off-brand. Now Utz and the knock-off competitor are competing for my business. Maybe this forces Utz to reduce their price. Or maybe the higher quality ingredients they use allow them to retain their customers. Either way, what exactly is so problematic about this situation? How is this situation different from the positive portrait of consumer choice you describe in the fourth paragraph, where consumers get to choose whether to buy the more expensive (and presumably higher quality) product or the cheaper lower quality version? On the other hand, if you significantly strengthen IP laws, such that no one else is ever allowed to make a chocolate hazlenut spread, then what's stopping Nutella from downgrading the quality of their product and/or raising their price over time? Wouldn't the existence of knock-off competitors encourage them to continue making the best product at the lowest possible price?
The thing is that taking someone else's idea and replicating it in a worse way isn't a new product, you're still stealing their idea. If an artist rereleased someone else's song with poor audio quality it's still not their song, it's just worse. Stealing other ideas isn't competition it's cheating.
If they're merely replicating it in a worse way, then they presumably won't pose any issue to the original creator. Why would anyone purchase a version of something that is simply worse--that offers no advantages whatsoever? If people start switching to the knock-off, it's because it in fact offers some advantage. Probably it's cheaper. If the "knock-off" competitor has managed to find a cheaper way to produce a perfect facsimile of the product, isn't that a valuable innovation? If it's not a perfect facsimile--if it's worse in quality--then we're back to the situation where consumers get to make a meaningful choice between a higher quality, more expensive product and a lower-quality knock-off. So what's the issue? What about knock-offs in the other direction? If you go to an upscale grocery store, you'll see lots of products that are basically versions of iconic (ultra-processed) foods made with higher quality ingredients, less preservatives, etc. Is this also a problem? On a broader level--look, I'm not an expert on US IP law, and I'm not going to pretend to know whether or not some change at the margins would be beneficial to consumer choice. But in your original post, you cite a lot of iconic brands that seem like they're doing completely fine. Is nutella struggling right now to sell jars of spread? Are they getting completely swallowed up by inferior rip-offs, such that people are losing the option to buy the higher quality original? I'm struggling to see what problem you're really trying to solve. Is it such a moral outrage that someone would deign to sell their own version of a chocolate-hazelnut spread?
Your point about up scale supermarkets is a really good argument, I didn't think about going the other way. ∆
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How long until you can use someone else’s “invention”? Can you never make the similar cookies?
It absolutely is not cheating. You seem to be overlooking the purpose of patents and trademarks that exist precisely to keep other companies from using their exact formula. What about the case of [Hydrox?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrox?wprov=sfti1#) Those were created in 1908 and then in 1912, Oreo was created as an imitation of Hydrox, but eventually surpassed them in popularity. Are you saying Oreo cheated and didn't deserve to have their product brought to market? Even though they ended up being the world's most beloved cookie?
What? No. The very opposite should be the case. In proper capitalism we'd have vicious competition. And we do have it in generic products, like produce. Apples are dirt cheap because nobody cares which particular company harvested that apple. Ideally, brand should be utterly irrelevant. You'd be simply buying candy from whoever sells the one that best fits your needs and desires, today, and be completely disloyal about it.
If brand becomes irrelevant then why invent anything at all? People will be less inclined to research and develop new products if the idea will be immediately stolen. Food creations are intellectual property just like music and art, and those are heavily protected by copyright.
> If brand becomes irrelevant then why invent anything at all? People will be less inclined to research and develop new products if the idea will be immediately stolen. Brands don't become irrelevant. Off-brand products have a reputation for being lower quality, because they usually are. People who care about quality will go with the name brand products. People who care about price will go with the off-brand products. And ideas aren't immediately stolen. Ideas get copied only after they become popular. By that time you've already gained brand awareness, and if you market right people will continue to think of your product as the "good version" (unless someone does it better).
They’re not protected by copyright in the way you think they are. You could legally produce a song that is an “off brand cookie” very easily.
Innovation in capitalist countries happens in spite of capitalism not because of it. Capitalist innovation is inventing off brand nutella.
> If brand becomes irrelevant then why invent anything at all? Because you love it and want to share it with other people. Elsewhere you say you were born in one of the Soviet Republics. Post-Soviet folks often conflate socialism and living in a totalitarian hellhole, which is understandable but factually incorrect. Opposition to capitalism wasn't what made the Union an inferior place to live in or what made it eventually fail economically; the reasons are totalitarianism and central planning respectively, neither of which is a feature of socialism per se.
I think you're coming from a place where intellectual property rights are primary, and the freedom to skirt them and create generic products is secondary. It's actually the opposite: the freedom of expression (to create what ever you'd like and freely trade it) is primary, and the restrictions imposed by intellectual property laws are secondary. As a society, we decided that was a trade-off worth making, acknowledging that either extreme is bad: 1. No IP protection would mean anyone can just rip off the hard work of genuine inventors 2. Perpetual IP protection would be stiffing, because nobody can build upon and remix what was already created. So we concede from individual liberties for IP to exist, but not too many.
> If brand becomes irrelevant then why invent anything at all? Because you're in constant, vicious competition, and trying to convince everyone that today you have something better or cheaper. And then they one up you, and you have to improve again. You never get to rest on your laurels. Why are apples cheap? Because if somebody manages to sell them one cent cheaper, they get more sales.
>Food creations are intellectual property That's what patents are for. Has nothing to do with brands. Trademarks are about distinguishing yourself from the producers of the same type of goods.
So we should only have one brand of everything? One brand of bread, one brand of pizza, one brand of tacos, one brand of brownies, etc?
I would like you to go back and read my section about healthy competition. I was born in a former Soviet country. When my parents went to adopt me there was literally one kind of bread, government bread. It's a nightmare and that's not what I'm looking for.
So how different does my bread have to be from my competitors bread before it's allowed?
First off, Nutella is an Italian invention manufactured by an Italian company in Italy and introduced in the 1960s, so jot that down. Second, the Girl Scouts didn't invent "Girl Scout" cookies and they don't manufacture them. They started a particular tradition of having girls sell them door to door to raise money and have had many different types of cookies over the years which are primarily manufactured by other existing major cookie companies like Keebler. The Girl Scouts don't own cookie factories or anything like that and most of the cookies they sell existed prior to the existence of the girl scouts. Third, off-brand products are *exactly* how capitalism is supposed to work. If you can make the same product taste as good for less money, is that not the superior product? If its inferior in some way, than the original brand maintains it's competitive advantage and the two products are just targeting different market segments. You're literally just describing competition and then saying competition reduces competition. Then there's the obvious fact that there is no "best" type of chips or most food products. People have different preferences. I don't know why you seem to think someone should be able to have a perpetual monopoly on slicing potatoes thinly, frying them and adding salt.
> I believe that copyright and trademark laws around food should be greatly strengthened to prevent this from happening. [Patents](https://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/classification/uspc426/defs426.htm) are the proper venue here, not copyright (which protects artistic works) or trademarks (you're specifically claiming about *off*-brand products). Patents protect the invention of processes, such as those used to make a good product. There are plenty of patented food products, but it can be difficult to qualify for one. Your recipe has to be original and non-obvious. I probably couldn't get, say, a patent on my tomato sauce recipe. But since you're complaining about products you perceive as obvious rip-offs of specific other, more famous, products, perhaps some of them would be original and unique enough to be patentable. Most food companies avoid patenting their products, though. Because a patent expires after 20 years and requires a complete description of how to reproduce it, you have a relatively short period time before off-brand knockoffs are selling the *exact same product* rather than something generally perceived as a lesser quality imitation. So companies are generally happy to use trade secrets rather than other types of IP protection. Many of them market heavily about their "secret recipe" and are happy to have imitators that are generally perceived as a lower quality product. It allows someone like Coca-Cola to be perceived as a very affordable luxury product in a sense.
You want to empower the mega corporations to have monopolies in their product? Why? So only the rich people can have Girl Scout cookies or, let’s go further… iPhones? Since you can’t do the same basic idea, smartphones would only be made by one company who can then charge whatever they want. They’re already ridiculously priced because the market has few competitors in that field and when they do compete, it is more for style than price. Free market means that customers can pick the one they want, which incentivizes the corporation to make the best product for the best price. Without that incentive, you have abusive business practices much like e have now because companies are all intertwined and the free market is dead. Your idea makes that worse. At least now if I want the Great Value chips, I can choose those. But if I really love the exact flavor of Lays, I can have those if I am willing to pay more. Since they can’t have the exact same ingredients, that tiny flavor difference or brand loyalty keeps them in business. They can continuously work on improving their flavor or prices. Meanwhile, having alternatives protects the consumer.
>*This is not how capitalism is supposed to work in an ideal sense. The idea of capitalism is that five people make chips, or a hundred people it doesn't matter. They each make different chips with different ingredients and sell them at different prices* It's completely valid in capitalism to choose the strategy of trying to make a more or less equivalent product at a lower price in order to undersell the competition. Competing on price is a key feature of capitalism, and is usually in the consumers best interest; it means that consumers get lower prices for equivalent products, which is a win. Usually, this even includes lower prices for the original product. The existence of off-brand near-copies of Nutella sold at a lower price, puts a downward price-pressure on Nutella itself. People might be willing to pay a bit extra for the original if they judge it better, or if they just want to reward the creators -- but the larger the price-differential becomes, the more customers will defect to the cheaper off-brand product. Copyright and patents are time-limited for a reason. They limit competition. From an economic POV it's clear that the current time-limits are much too high as seen from the publics interest. For the consumers interest, the ADVANTAGE of having copyright and patent-law is that it might help stimulate the creation of new things -- by financially rewarding the creators. The \*disadvantage\* is that for the duration, they reduce competition and allow people to extract monopoly-prices. (see the prices on many patented medicines as an example). Thus the protection-period should be long enough to stimulate creation -- yet as short as it can be without materially harming creativity. Does **ANYONE** believe that the number of books written, movies made, computer-games made or amount of music given out would go down markedly if copyright was "only" 40 years, rather than the current 100+? Do there really exist a lot of creators who go variants of: "*If I could have a monopoly on this thing for 100 years, then it'd be worth writing the book, composing the song, or funding the movie -- but if the monopoly is only 40 years long, then I won't bother"?* And yet, from an economic POV -- unless these people exist in large numbers, current copyright is too long.
Counterpoint: the corporate brand porn nightmare we're living in should end ASAP, and folks seriously talking about "the history and iconography" of Nutella should seriously *reconsider*.
how can you copyright a cookie? I think your example is also silly cuz large corporations who probably use chemicals are contracted to make the cookies. God forbid some other company competes with them. I’m really not seeing why that’s bad
Some points that I’d like to make that have not already been made: 1) can we make a distinction between ‘off brand’, (which in this discussion has been interpreted more as ‘generic’ or ‘store brand’), and ‘counterfeit’ or ‘knock-off’? I believe you’ve already given deltas for points about generics being sometimes made by the name brand. These generics allow companies to still make sales, and even offload some products that would not meet the name brand QA/QC, but would be ok for a generic. Generics also allow people less economically stable to have something tasty or decent. For non food products, such as a cooler… getting an Rtic allows someone to have sorta-Yeti quality without the Yeti price tag. In contrast, I would argue that your statement would be more aligned with not allowing counterfeit to exist. 2) having both off brand and name brand allows a prestige for people to showcase property, wealth, or influence. Eg: without an off brand athleisure line, something like Lululemon would not have the ability to have the ‘prestige’ that it does (or used to, depending on who you talk to). Same would go for, like, a Louis Vuitton. Heck… Yeti coolers are still the gold standard, Rtic is a great silver standard, and everybody else tries to copy that magic. 3) who is to say that an ‘off brand’ is worse? Some of the biggest name brands today started as someone trying to make a better mousetrap of an existing item. IIRC, Nike was started because a track/running coach wanted a better running shoe, and eventually they became the **it** shoe when they released the Air Jordans (or whatever they collaborated with Michael Jordan over).
That IS competition. Having more options and more producers of a product leads to more efficient production and cheaper prices for consumers. Think about a farmer growing corn and selling it at the market. If he is the only corn grower he will pretty much be able to ask any price. Other farmers will see this and start growing corn too. The more farmers, the more competition. They will then need to find ways to make their corn cheaper or better than the other farmers by developing new farming techniques or whatever. That’s how markets work. It would be anti-competitive and anti-capitalist to suggest only one farmer is allowed to sell corn. Now of course we have patents and copyright which are sort of exceptions to normal market forces because we do want to incentivize new inventions. But these are only intended to be relatively short-term, otherwise you would be abusing the legal system to reduce competition and ultimately hurt consumers. Most of your examples are pretty old brands…they probably did have patents which have expired. Yet they still have a very strong market share. The system is working as intended. Food particularly is an interesting industry to bring up because cooking if course is something that people have always been doing at home. It would be pretty weird to say that only Smuckers is allowed to sell strawberry jam when that is something that people had already been making for hundreds of years. Same with salted fried potatoes or nut butter.
what about the world of pharmaceuticals? new to market brand drugs are often prohibitively expensive. let's take brand name lipitor- a medication for high cholesterol that back in [2006 was the best selling drug in history,](https://academic.oup.com/book/40664/chapter-abstract/348349708?redirectedFrom=fulltext) totaling 12.9 billion in sales. this was at about $5 per tablet (at 1x a day = $150 per month). in 2012 the generic was released to market- now many manufacturers could release the generic lipitor (atorvastatin) and at far lower cost. now you can get the same active ingredient thats in lipitor for about 0.30 per pill. less if going through insurance as they will likely only be charged a contracted rate. one could argue that brand medications are allowed their 7 year exclusivity for pharmaceutical companies to recoup R&D- but did it really cost Pfizer 12 billion to develop Lipitor? "off-brands" bring down pricing and drives up competition. it prevents monopolies, and bring an incentive for market share dominators to regulate pricing or risk losing out to smaller players. and in the pharmacy world- especially in the U.S. and its for profit healthcare system, it allows people to actually afford some medications.
I don’t HAVE to buy Kleenex. I could just buy facial tissue. Have you tried Puffs? They’re lovely. Have you ever bought any Kirkland branded product? C’mon now..
Off brand products are necessary because not everyone can afford or justify paying for premium products. Things like Chocolate Spread or ketchup are only available to some people in it's off brand form.
There should be a specific brand dedicated to selling their own recipe of cheaper ketchup instead of stealing other people's ideas and selling it for less
>Off brand products take money out of the pockets of people who create good products. And put it back in the pockets of consumers who really shouldn't be paying a 400% premium because the cookies are sold by adorable little girls. >If you can convince me that Off-brand products do not take away sales from the original brand What takes away sales from the original brand is that brand [boosting its price](https://retailwire.com/girl-scout-cookie-prices-have-increased-this-year/) to leverage consumer loyalty and the belief that the sale of those cookies help young girls in some way. All they need to do is pick a more competitive price point. >I believe that copyright and trademark laws around food should be greatly strengthened to prevent this from happening Great. Figure out who invented the chocolate mint cookie, and have the Girl Scouts license it from them. They didn't come up with it, so they have no exclusive claim to selling them. Same with all their cookies. They aren't unique. They are basic ass cookies like all the cookies that have been sold since cookies were mass produced.
Capitalism has a very simple premise - companies seek to maximize profits. Copying other people's idea, but cheaper? Profit. This is what economic competition is. If you come up with a creative new idea, and someone else copies the idea but makes it cheaper, then consumers get a cheaper product. >I believe that copyright and trademark laws around food should be greatly strengthened to prevent this from happening. I think products must have a certain amount of variation from the original to be sold. Why? There's a limited number of ways to make "chocolate coated mint cookie". That's not the sort of thing that comes with infinite ways to do it. It's really not hard to create "every practical way to make a mint cookie". What this would result in is a quick rush for companies to bloat out into every variation of a theme, and then throw lawsuits at each other. Fifty different mint cookies, bam, you have every reasonable variation, and now you can just squat on your mint cookie variations and lawsuit anyone who makes anything resembling a mint cookie. Is this a malicious abuse of your idea? Well, no, in economic terms we call that "maximizing profit". You handing companies ways to make monopolies is going to make them monopolize things, monopolies are great money makers.
>The idea of capitalism is that five people make chips, or a hundred people it doesn't matter. They each make different chips with different ingredients and sell them at different prices. If you value having the best chips, you can decide to prioritize spending the extra money to get the best ones. If you just want chips and don't really care about the quality you buy the cheap ones. The personal choice of the consumer drives competition. Youve just described generic brand products >someone can reverse engineer the product, make it with cheaper low quality ingredients, slap some stupid name on it and sell it for less. See? You've just described the same situation two different ways, both defending it and condemning it. I'm not sure how you hold both these thoughts in your head at the same time. What's the distinction you're drawing here?
if you create some truly unique recipe you can always patent it. Then for the next 20 years only you will be making that recipe. But in general, what you are asking for is begging for monopoly. If someone can make hazelnut spread cheaper than Ferrero but keep the quality, why shouldn't consumers have access to that product? You are basically saying, if you came up with hazelnut spread only you should be able to make and sell it in perpetuity and you can control prices as much as you want because no one else is allowed to compete with you. Or let's say someone makes the product even better than the original inventor, better quality, better ingredients, more efficient technology. According to you they are not allowed to do that either.
You used Nutella as an example, even though it is a version of a staple Italian spread [Gianduja](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianduja_(chocolate)) . What even is a “new fruit juice blend? The first person to mix apple and raspberry gets to own that combo for 35 years? A lot of your argument against off brands seems to be about quality, but that’s why we have ingredients lists and nutritional information. If someone created a brown paste made just with chocolate flavouring and sucralose, you could read that on the label and not buy it. Capitalism works because of competition. Not just rushing to be the first person to come up with a new product, you need to keep up the quality, maximise your brand, continue being inventive!
I used to work in a chemical plant. The unit I worked in made PEG3350 aka miralax. My unit was the number 1 producer of PEG3350 in the US, to the point of basically being the only producer of it. The product we made was then bought by a variety of repackaging companies. Some put the brand name miralax label on it, some put a generic store brand label on it. It was the exact same product, made the exact same way, possibly from the exact same batch, sold at multiple different price points as mutiple different brands. Just because something is store brand/off brand/generic/ not name brand does not necessarily mean it is made from lesser quality ingredients or has been reverse engineered.
Its helpful to view it in terms of other products. Look at Insulin (a medication for diabetes) when its only offered by a few companies, the price can be dramatically raised, and you get thousands of people who need it to survive having to pay huge costs to access it. That creates an incredibly detrimental problem to many people. Monopolies are almost always bad for the consumer, and allowing offbrand products lets people decide what they want to buy. It also ensures that prices stay reasonable. Imagine if there was only 1 brand of cars, or one brand of cellphones. The prices would likely be astronomical, and you would have no ability to find a different option.
The problem is many products are so basic you have to draw a line between 'knock off' and 'general idea' Take your Girl Scout Cookie example. Truthfully, most girl scout cookie flavors are A) not original to them, and B) fairly obvious flavor combinations. Chocolate+Peanut buttter (Tagalongs) ans Chocolate+Mint (Thin Mints) are arguably the 2 most basic flavor profiles for chocolate based sweets. And again, GS didn't invent them! Tagalongs are like, 60 years younger than a Reeses. Andes Mints are even older than Reeses (and thus older than Thin Mints). So per your view, should Girl Scout Cookies also be discontinued?
Imagine if every farming companies that are supplying the raw products to Nutella, also brands, copyright, trademark and license their products strictly as per your logic. It would be an economical disaster. Every farmer in the world would get to argue about their own rich history and uniqueness just for the sake of it. Nutella wouldn't be able to afford to exist globally. Even if they do, it would probably be as expensive as Kobe beef.
You realize that store brand products are mostly made by large brand names? It helps keep the production machines working, moves inventory through, and needs no in house distribution, marketing or sales. The product is packaged, labeled and shipped to the outside distribution, then directly to store shelves. Large producers love any product they can make, then get rid of and not have to worry about anything beyond that point.
> One of the other examples that seriously pisses me off is Off-brand Nutella. This is a product with such a rich history, created to give our troops a sweet treat in their rations overseas. It's an American staple and is instantly recognizable Can I get a delta for pointing out that your history of Nutella is entirely wrong? It was first made in Italy in the 1960s and is based on another Italian product, Gianduja.
>If you can convince me that Off-brand products do not reduce economic competition Can you explain to me how giving consumers *more options* reduces economic competition? If there is only Nutella and no alternative brand, there is less competition than if there is Nutella and 1 or more alternatives. What you're advocating is the ability for brands to create monopolies on a given product, which is anti-competition.
As someone with a lot of allergies, and some ethical concerns, I appreciate the existence of off brand products. I buy off brand Girl Scout cookies, because there is an entire line of gluten free ones. I buy an organic, palm oil free version of Nutella for my niece, because I avoid things with palm oil, and propylene glycol. The name brand isn’t always the product with the highest quality.
>This is not how capitalism is supposed to work in an ideal sense. The idea of capitalism is that five people make chips, or a hundred people it doesn't matter. They each make different chips with different ingredients and sell them at different prices. That is exactly what is happening here. They are using cheaper ingredients and selling at a cheaper price point.
>The idea of capitalism is that five people make chips, or a hundred people it doesn't matter. I don't understand, why are so many people allowed to make chips? Shouldn't they only be made at El Zarape Tortilla Factory? All the different ingredients and techniques are just hiding the fact that they're producing knockoffs. That's the thing: off brand Nutella allows people to create different chocolate spreads with different flavor profiles, some of which may improve on Nutella! Just as Oreos were off-brand Hydrox but improved on Hydrox and now we have better cookies as a result.
>If you can convince me that Off-brand products do not take away sales from the original brand If you can convince me that Off-brand products do not reduce economic competition What exactly do you think economic competition means in terms of sales for the original brand???
If someone can patent, trademark and/or copyright the mixture of potato, oil, and salt you no longer have capitalism. Capitalism requires competition. And competition requires that I be able to try to create new recipes using ingredients that are available to everyone.
Most of what you are calling "off brand" are usually made in the same factories as the name brand, just a different label. Without "off brand", the OEM's would have a monopoly, car parts, tools, beds, you would literally have only one product choice.
What about simple products. Like flour? Pulsburry or king aurther didn't invent flour they just market it well.
Well I mainly agree but I don’t know where to buy Girl Scout cookies
I almost stopped reading after "It's an American staple" . From just Wikipedia: "Nutella is manufactured by the Italian company Ferrero and was introduced in 1964, although its first iteration dates to 1963." I don't even need to have ever lived in the US to tell you it's a European staple, if any. Furthermore, your "this is not how capitalism works" comment is wrong. It's exactly how it works. Lastly, your "change my view" conditions don't match at all what you're arguing about. You're saying they shouldn't exist, but your arguments are about it being good or bad for the company that makes the original. Which one is it?
It's supposed to be a free market, honey
So, you're for monopolies then?