action in the world v legal action v poor ole Alfa

[Pottree@domain.elided]

In a message dated 11/11/2002 8:42:30 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided writes:


> ... Alfa Romeo...
> exchange of opinions and to consider them in the context of today's
> plagiarizing by automobile manufacturer public relations machines... of 
> past
> accomplishments ...for marketshare and international prestige purposes.  
> ...the fact that accomplishments of Alfa Romeo
> engineers and stylists (and Italian engineers and stylists in general) have
> never been widely acknowledged and in fact have become 'hijacked' over the
> years by manufacturers who have successfully preyed upon the world's 
> ignorant
> autombile enthusiast masses. 

I know even less about the law than I do of the technical ins and out of 
automobiles, as not a few have pointed out.  But this thread seems to also be 
about people's attitudes and about professional marketing, and there I have 
something of an inside track.

I believe that the word plagiarize has a very specific legal meaning (without 
getting into just what it is), but what is going on as described in the above 
interchange isn't it.  You can also see there is a distinct undercurrent of 
contempt and suspicion of the practitioners of "public relations" and by 
implication, their satanic henchmen in marketing.  

A vague description of something as being new (compared to what?  The wheel 
itself was new once, and to some people it may still be an insufficiently 
tested modern-day gimmick) or improved is not the same thing as stealing the 
work of a person (physical or legal) and claiming that particular effort as 
your own.  What's really going on, it seems to me, is a little crying about 
the following situation, which is retrospect was not handled to the greatest 
advantage for our beloved marque:

A technology or a device is refined, perfected, or developed by crack 
engineers.  People on the Digest can point to long lists of things in this 
category from Alfa history.

But instead of sicking some equally crack, grown-up marketing people on the 
case to turn this to a selling advantage, the engineer-types assume that the 
advance by itself is sufficient evidence of the brand's superiority, and that 
anyone who could understand what that advance entails would ipso facto know 
it was theirs, would associate it with the brand, and credit would be issued 
where and when due.  

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, someone a little more world-wise and savvy (if 
not nearly as creative or intellectual) realized that the term VVT or disk 
brakes or rack and pinion could be made to sound sexy, could be made to sound 
like a benefit, could add distinction, and could add a competitive (perhaps 
if not a leading) edge to the marketing, and jumped right into the vacuum 
left to them by the engineers who would feel it unseemly to toot their own 
horn (who invented that, anyhow?).  

So now time passes and people wake up and say, What nerve!  What chutzpah!  
How could they steal our thunder and claim as new what is not so new, or as 
their own what we invented?

Well, why didn't you say anything back in 1980?  1920?  Or whenever?  

After it leaves the drawing board it is now a brand, a product -- a business. 
 And our beloved Alfa has, despite the efforts of N. Romeo, never been very 
good at this part of the equation.  This is just another example.

The real question is will they get that side of the house together now, in a 
position of relative strength, before it is too late, or will they fade away 
into the sunset because of the tug between the engineering side (it's good so 
they'll buy it, it will sell itself!) and the marketing side (they don't know 
it's good, and they may not even know it exists until we tell them what to 
think about it, using the most powerful means available shy of risking jail).

Charlie
LA, CA, USA
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