Hi all,

I'm in need of some management help. I have recently been made aware that we have a few competitors in the Microfiche CD market. Click here to see info on this product. While I knew of only one competitor (Courtesy Nissan), there seems to be some influx of people showing up on Ebay trying to do the same.

My question to all of you is, should I fight these people or just let it go? Fact of the matter is, we have been told by my contact at Nissan that we are the only organization authorized (via copyright release) to sell these products.

On these grounds, I can fight these competitors in order to keep our club online and supported by the revenue generated by the sales of this CD.

We were the first organization to come up with the microfiche CD idea. We worked hard on the product and we brought it to market. Now that it is out there in full force, what should we do?

I don't want to fight the other competitors on this because I believe we would all lose in the battle. Therefore, I need ideas. How do we take this situation and make the Z community a better place because of it? That's my entire reason for creating this club in the first place...... I hate trying to ward off my enemies

with sticks on my own. Instead, let's rally the troops and walk in with pitchforks and torches.

Bring on the ideas!

-- Moderator Mike

We see this kind of thing in ther business world all the time. My key point is that you should focus on your goal (revenue) and not the obstacle (pirated CD's.)Erik

Erik,

Thank you. You are right on the money here. I'm going to do what I can to address this issue with the appropriate avenues. But, things like this can sure get you down. So, I'll work on getting our product out there and put my efforts into something that is benefical rather than tearing it down.

With your MBA degree, are you available to help the club with our marketing campaign?

[m]

Mike,

I think you have heard a lot of good points being made here. If we all support the club and only buy our (your) CD then there won't be a problem with the others. It doesn't take long for one of our club members to get the word out to everyone about "illegal copies" of anything. In our little world of Z owners, we can all pass the word along when we find these things and make every efort to convince all other Z owners to join the club. There is certaintly power in numbers if we stick together.

If we are truly the only group authorized via copyright to publish the Nissan info on the Z then I see the club having 3 things to do.

1. Contact eBay and sent them documentation that the club has the copyright on the information on the CD that is being sold on eBay.

2. Ask Nissan to send a letter to the sellers that they are in copyright violation.

3. The club sends a letter to the sellers that they are in violation of copyright laws.

Item one should be the easiest because eBay is very responsive to software piracy issues. If eBay agrees then they will be shut down.

Hope this helps I am new to this foram and i hope i just did not step in something.

Owen K