What would you do?

[Steve Ashton]

This particular case does bring up another issue.

We, the buying public, be-moan and say how sad it is that cheaper goods are coming in from overseas and undercutting the old, respected Scottish firms.

We ask "Why are the old firms dying out?"

Well, the truth is - We are the ones killing them. If we don't buy from them they cannot stay in business.

How many websites can you find selling the exact same design belt buckle? The same design sporran cantle? The same design utility style kilt?

Some of these designs have been around since the first days of Highland wear on the web. They have been around so long that they have become almost iconic.
Even as long as 2001 in some cases. Wow, a whole 13 years!

Because they are some of the first, they were also some of the first to be copied.

And yet when we see those designs and like it, and we decide we would like to buy one, what do we do? We surf the web till we find the lowest price. And that is where our money goes.

If it is sold in so many places it must be a well liked and popular design. Does it ever occur to us to ask ourselves who the artist was that came up with the design in the first place?

I can just about guarantee that those copying these designs are not the ones who came up with the design in the first place. They are copying them because they know that someone will buy them because they are proven successful and well liked designs.

If we, the buying public, continue to see the same designs over and over yet never bother to ask if those designs are stolen we are directly responsible for the original firm dying.

Yep, I'm putting this right back on us. It is not the overseas companies doing this to the Scottish firms, it is us spending our money on the copies that are killing them.
And believe it or not it is X Marks that is doing some of this.



Let me give you an example. The Isle of Skye Tartan. In early 2005 an X Marks member posted about his new kilt in the IOS Tartan. Everyone here loved it. A poll was put up and we voted it the most beautiful Tartan in the world. We even started calling it the X Marks Hunting Tartan.

We started buying IOS Tartan kilts.

Within six months there appeared three companies selling "Isle of Skye Tartan Kilts" at a fraction of the price we were used to seeing. And our members began to buy them. A lot of them.

Luckily one of our members knew that this Tartan is under copyright to a lady in Australia. That was posted about here. Did it stop the sales? No, we were still spending our money of the cheaper ones even though we now knew it was ripped off.

Some more luck. A large shipping container arrived in a port in Scotland filled to the brim with knock-off Isle of Skye Tartan kilts. An import agent who happen to be a member of X Marks, and had read here that the IOS was under copyright, stopped the container and sent it back to Pakistan.
Oh, it came back soon after. The kilts were now called "Bright Skye Tartan Kilts". And believe it or not, they were sold.


Some of our members do not realize the power this small internet forum has in the kilt world. We can literally make or break a product. We can literally make or break a company.

Is the kilt making world watching us? Well I can assure you that the Pakistani and Indian, and Chinese manufacturers are watching X Marks. Why bother to register when they can simply log on as guests? And I can assure you that they are logged on every day. They are watching what X Marks members are buying.
And that is exactly what they are going to make next. All because they know from history that we will buy it if they can offer it at a cheaper price. We proved it to them.

Some of our members are searching the internet daily, looking for those bargains. They post here about them all the time.
I would suggest to our members that they open their eyes to the power that this little internet forum has become.
Do you want the Scottish based highland wear industry to succeed? Then watch where you are spending your money.
If you see the same product offered by two, three or more sites, ask yourself if you are seeing a case of theft.
Post a question about that if you see it.

And if you see a case of what you believe is copyright or patent infringement and still spend your money to support it ---