Well, I know more about the handgun industry than the knife industry. I know that just about everyone copied the Smith & Wesson revolver pattern and, not only that, the style of individual models. Smith & Wesson's popular 66 stainless .357 mag was soon reflected in almost mirror image in the Taurus 66. The latter, when it came out, wasn't nearly as accurate (still isn't). Taurus put all its money into making its revolver purty, not accurate. As a result, you had a highly polished, fully functional .357 mag revolver that was fine for self defense, but for recreational target shooting, it had problems hitting the broad side of the proverbial barn. Still, it was a fraction of the price of the S&W version and it worked. Tolerances were something that could not be seen with the naked eye and performance suffered.
Rossi and others came along. Then there was Llama, a gun that smelled like cheap steel and oil and the finish looked as though it had been applied with a black magic marker. It was neither attractive nor reliable, yet it sold large numbers in Mexico, where many people couldn't afford anything better. Then Glock came along and suddenly everyone was making plastic gu...er...
polymer guns. Lightweight, reliable and inexpensive, at first, anyway, it wasn't long until everyone, including Smith & Wesson, were into the act.
Knives are somewhat removed because of the individual knife makers. It's an industry where originality is awfully hard to define and performance is even more difficult to assess. Some knife makers are producing folding knives that cost hundreds of dollars. Beautifully designed and meticulously hand fitted, they remain very high in demand and can often be sold for as much, if not more, than they were purchased for. But when it comes to performance, it remains only a knife—a premium steel blade (often Damascus or other super grade) and a titanium or inlaid steel frame, artfully done and extraordinarily well crafted. The people who buy such knives often can afford them and many, many more, can't.
It thus becomes a compound issue of what's original, what's not, what's inspired and what's ripped off. Does Cold Steel take any money out of the pockets of custom knife makers, or do they simply provide the "little guy" with the chance of owning something ordinarily out of his reach? True, sometimes the name of the inspired knife or knifemaker is conveyed; other times it's completely ignored, possibly for legal reasons. One scholar noted that no one has ever said anything significant about anything that wasn't already said by some Greek. Even John F. Kennedy "borrowed" his famous saying, "Ask not what your country can do for you...." It was originally (as far as anyone can tell) coined by the Roman orator, Cicero. But who knows where
he got it? In short, attribution is one of the most challenging ethical or legal issues in the history of man. Apple sued Microsoft, but Microsoft pointed to references in science fiction that long predated Apple's screen, keyboard and mouse. The famous author Arthur C. Clark was, himself, talking about keyboards and screens at a time when he was still banging away on the keys of a cheap Smith-Corona.
Whatever the outcome, it can't be settled here, at least not in generalities. If anything, it must be discussed on a case-by-case basis, preferably with the input of all parties. And frankly, that ain't gonna happen. Doesn't make it right, but it does make it complicated.
Looks for all the world like a Smith & Wesson, even down to the cylinder release,
but it's a Rossi. Not at all subtle.
Anchors away!
