I love Rossman’s channel - it’s incredibly interesting and he seems like a real mensch.
That said this conspiracy theory seems a bit out there. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is something as mundane as a customs worker inspecting merchandise with Apple branding that’s most certainly not from Apple and declaring it counterfeit. (And if Apple didn’t refurbish it, it technically is counterfeit.) This is all far cry from “Apple is colluding with foreign governments to keep your devices from being repaired.”
The car analogy doesn’t work here because the technical aspects of what make a car a car is based on its VIN and not the rest of it. You could basically replace every single part from the frame up with third party parts (Ship of Theseus style) and it’ll always be what the VIN says it is.
I never said it was a one off situation. And I wouldn’t t surprised if the screen incident was the same thing (third party goods with the Apple trademark).
DHS and CPB is very motivated to keep counterfeit goods out of the supply chain and they aggressively enforce this. The higher profile the company, the more aggressive the enforcement.
I’m not saying what’s happening in this case is right - but I’m highly doubting this is some great conspiracy. These are the risks you take when you buy gray market or potentially infringing goods.
I disagree that the VIN makes the car, even if that is how cars are registered. Salvage titles are a good example of that. You can weld two totaled cars together and then deceptively sell it under the VIN of one of the sources of parts but that doesn’t make it OK. The issue there isn’t selling the car as a “Chevy” but the concealment of the work done. Merely removing the Chevy branding from the car doesn’t affect or solve the issue. Same goes for the refurbished batteries. The issue is not, and should not be, the apple logo but rather that the batteries should be clearly marked as refurbished by a third party - and they may have been, but Apple does not seem to care. They seem to think that repairing apple products is counterfeiting. Period.
Have you tried RAVPower batteries? The replacement I bought last June made a world of difference for my Note 4. And RAVPower seems to have a good reputation overall. For some reason I trust a battery with the company’s name boldly printed on it rather than one marked as “Samsung” when really it was made by one of any number of contract manufacturers who don’t really care about quality knowing it’s just going to be added to the supply anonymously.
Edit: Oh. Unless the battery I bought was a counterfeit RAVPower battery…dammit there goes my paranoia.
I suppose it’s a might be tenuous to argue you did, but it seemed implied by your critique of the pickup truck analogy. To say something isn’t analogous means you are analyzing both the original an the attempted analogy for similarity or differences, and if trademark law doesn’t prohibit repairing batteries, then the truck analogy holds. And the VIN isn’t the brand, its the VIN. It’s like saying the serial number is the battery. Apple isn’t, so far as I know, saying the issue is with the serial numbers.
Using a similar reasoning my last replacement was an Anker battery. I figured it was less likely to be counterfeit and at least decent. But they don’t make replacements for the Note 4 any more, and I’m not sure if they are even in the replacement battery business any more. All the current 3d party battery replacement options for the Note 4 on Amazon have both glowing 5 star reviews and a disproportionate number of 1 star reviews, and Amazon has a known problem with counterfeits in its supply chain. So there is no clear safe choice :-(.
The VIN is the brand in the sense that the VIN says what the vehicle is (manufacture, make, model, etc.). If I replace every body panel, chassis, and mechanical part to turn a Prius into a Ferrari, it’s still a Prius as far as the law is concerned. If I sell it to you as a Ferrari I’m committing fraud even though the only thing not making it one is a VIN since basically every other part has been swapped out.
I replace every internal part of a battery but leave the Apple branding on the outer case, it may no longer be an Apple battery, but because there’s Apple branding on it it’s now a counterfeit product in the eyes of the law. If I scratch out all the Apple branding, then we likely have a different story here (there may be DMCA ramifications here but I don’t think CPB/DHS cares about this).
I’m not defending this - but instead I’m arguing the most likely legal rationale behind this. Occam’s razor tells me that it’s far more likely that it’s CPB/DHS just doing their job rather than Apple conspiring to prevent repairs of EOL products.
How do you think they got to be a trillion dollar company?
Good quality (ish)
Fanatic customer base
High prices
Enforced planned obsolescence
Apple doesn’t want you to be a customer, they want you to pay subscription fees at regular intervals for the joy of belonging to the church of tne believers
The price is simple, a new phone every two years and a laptop every four. If you keep your side of the bargain you’ll be admited into heaven, and if you don’t…
Apparently it’s not a Prius if you do that. If you replace everything that will eventually include the parts with the VIN. The VIN is tied to some of the specific parts, not to a theoretical Car of Theseus. Rebolting the VIN on to a replaced part to maintain the title is fraud (some states allow “rebodied” cars but that is a change that must be disclosed, inspected and approved, and becomes a stated part of the title) - I think you could make an argument that the refurbishing company has done something like that, but you’d have to give up your Car of Theseus argument.
Assume just enough of the original frame (which the VIN is basically tied to full stop) is left intact (sort of like building a McMansion around a single original wall to exploit various zoning and permitting loopholes). In a true Car of Theseus scenario truly you’d end up with a VIN-less shopbuilt car which has its own interesting caveats and legal ramifications.
Regardless, I’m bored with this particular line of discussion. My point was that vehicles have some interesting and specific peculiarities that most other goods do not have that make them a poor analog in this discussion.
Among some good arguments both for and against Apple in this case (and ignoring the different issue of them not selling consumers replaceable parts) this thread has some of the dumbest hypothetical arguments and examples I have ever read and it makes me sad. Boing Boing readers are usually much better in stating their cases.
Meanwhile, I try to remain a customer even though that is not what they want me to be, as you correctly surmise. Over the years I have accumulated (not all of my own volition) 8 or 9 Apple devices from Macbooks, to iPads, to an iPhone, and sundry iPods of various models. The youngest is 3 years old, the next youngest 6, and some are close to a decade old. My Macbook Pro is 6 years old, and my iPads both 5 or 6 years old too.
And the key thing is that they are all going strong and all meet my needs just fine and look set to do so for a long time yet, despite Apple’s preference that they ought not. Sooner or later they will make obsolete the iPad iOS versions I can run and then I will start not being able to run some apps. Already happened to one of my iPod Touches.
I do not wish to go to heaven, but hell is a new phone every two years and a new laptop every 4.
I don’t know which arguments you are referring to either way since you are being unhelpfully vague. As for bringing up the Ship of Theseus, I actually think that is a valid reference to invoke, because the counterfeiting claim brings up the fundamental question of how much of the item can be replaced before it can no longer legitimately be called a “re-manufactured” Apple product. I think we all actually agree that there is a line, we may just disagree on where it is:
A) Fixed a broken solder joint on an otherwise perfect set of cells in an Apple OEM battery pack
B) Kept the original battery shell and wiring, replaced two defective cells inside the pack with ones with equivalent specs
C) Kept the original battery shell and wiring, replaced all cells inside the pack with equivalents
D) Cut just the Apple label off of an OEM battery and stuck it on a completely new 3d party battery pack.
E) Printed new a label identical to Apple’s OEM labeling and stuck it on a completely new 3d party battery pack.
Apple seems to think all of the above are counterfeiting. I think that most people who are not Apple would agree that A is definitely legit, and D and E would be counterfeiting, leaving only the issue of where to draw the line between A and D.
I didn’t mention any specifically because I’m not going to accuse someone specifically with an insult. Normally I would present a counter argument to something I disagree with, but some of the ones I have in mind are just so non-relevant to anything that it seems more effort than it’s worth. Also, I assume everyone will think “Well, obviously MY argument isn’t dumb, so he didn’t mean me!” =o)
And like I said, there are LOTS of good arguments, just I thought way more from out in left field than I normally encounter on Boing Boing. Usually the really dumb comments come from people who just joined up to comment, but that’s not the case here. Every you said above makes sense and is applicable to the argument for sure though!
