GoPro threatning to sue action camera accessory makers
Dec 9, 2016
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Share:
It almost feels like GoPro have gone into some kind of self-destructive downward spiral. Since hitting their peak near the end of 2014, GoPro’s share prices have taken plunge after plunge. They received a little bump with the announcement of the Karma, which immediately dropped back down after the recall was announced.
Now, it seems, that if GoPro have to suffer, then so do everybody else. In this passionate video from YouTuber Devin Graham (aka Devinsupertramp), he explains that GoPro are threatening to sue accessory make GoScope. Firstly, they don’t like the use of the word “Go” in their name. They’re also demanding they change all their moulds, too. Presumably under some sort of alleged design infringement.
GoScope arose as the result of a need back in 2011. Selfie sticks were literally sticks or golf clubs with cameras strapped to the end. There were virtually no 3rd party accessories available. Although GoPro produced amazing cameras, their own accessories simply didn’t fill the needs of their users.
At the time of registering the GoScope trademark, they actually spoke with GoPro, who had a six month window to object to the filing. GoPro, at the time, seemed cool with it. Now, something seems to have changed.
I guess now that GoPro have released their own backpack and a handheld gimbal, they’re simply trying to take out the competition. They do seem pretty heavy handed in their approach, though.
GoScope are a small family run company. It’s just Kyle, his wife, and young child based out of their hometown in North Carolina. The products are designed in America, with the parts manufactured in China, similar to GoPro themselves. They’re not raking in the kind of money that GoPro are, and certainly not enough to make a dent in GoPro’s income.
Common sense might suggest that since GoPro didn’t object to the filing of the GoScope name back in 2011, that they’ve relinquished the right to object now. But, the common sense and the legal systems around the world rarely seem to go hand in hand.
As for changing the moulds. The video doesn’t go into too much detail on this, but 3rd party products are vital to pretty much any camera system. Manufacturers may choose void your warranty as a consumer if you attach some of these 3rd party accessories to your camera. They don’t, however, seem to take companies to court for producing them. Well, unless those companies are trying to pass them off as officially sanctioned products.
I just can’t tell any more what GoPro’s overall plan seems to be any more. The Karma was stomped all over by DJI’s Mavic Pro even before the recalls. Companies like YI are stepping up to challenge their action camera dominance. They look like they could potentially be dethroned at any minute.
Instead of innovating and producing new and amazing products (that don’t need recalling), they’re going after accessory makers that have never been a problem for GoPro before. It just seems like there’s been no really good news around GoPro for a while now.
They may have blazed the trail in this field, but perhaps they just didn’t anticipate how quickly the competition would start catching up. And when they can’t tackle that competition on an even playing field, they make the small guy their new competition and try to drive them out completely.
Whatever the reasons, the future’s not looking great for GoPro. Hopefully they’ll see some sense, leave GoScope alone, and start leading the way again at some point.
What do you think? Are you still a big GoPro fan? Do you think GoPro should have the monopoly on accessories that fit their camera? What about when you want an accessory that GoPro don’t make? Let us know in the comments.
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Join the Discussion
DIYP Comment Policy
Be nice, be on-topic, no personal information or flames.
12 responses to “GoPro threatning to sue action camera accessory makers”
Ah, you Americans – I bet some aHole has tried to patent the infamous 1/4″ – 20 screw thread ? I’ll say it here first, under Trump the US may enjoy a short term gain, but ultimately in the longer run you’re destined to enjoy third world status… Good Luck with the trade wars!
Remember that MORE than half of our country did not vote for trump. We’re not expecting any short term gain, just utter destruction of everything we’ve fought for over the last 8 years. As for our patent system, it’s messed up beyond belief….but PLEASE don’t count us all as Trumpkins.
Considering only just over half your population got up of their butts to vote, only a quarter of you voted for Trump. Still not great odds. But yeah, back to patents. It really is a silly system the world over.
probably because GoPro is hemorrhaging money
From one side – this is $hitty thing to do, but they have all rights to do it.
Best case scenario: GoPro ask design fee, for every sold accessory, like Apple is doing it.
Sounds like the final nail to the coffin.
I mean, I imagine this decision from GoPro will get reversed… if not, I can see the company getting sold and taken over.
The stock is very clear on what’s happening with GoPro, quite unfortunately.
Peak value for the company happened around the end of 2014, they had a smaller spike in 2015, and since then the value sunk like a rock and stayed on the bottom for too long.
The announcement of few months ago for the GoPro Hero 5 line plus the Karma didn’t help a whole lot, extremely tepid response, and now that the Karma has completely failed, their stock prices have been slowly getting to the historical low once again.
The market is completely littered with alternatives, for all GoPro offerings, including accessories. No matter how much the company struggled to go after those, they will never be able to close down all companies making alternative accessories. Just go on Amazon or B&H and search for accessories that GoPro makes.
Going after accessory makers sounds like a desperate measure for money… Nick might not know about all these bad moves that are happening, but you can bet that he knows they are going for desperate measures right now.
And things like that are clearly a shot in the foot since GoPro was built on top of community. GoPro only happened because of community. It managed to stay relevant for a long time because of community efforts, lots of people bought the cameras because they knew they could get any type of accessories they needed from 3rd parties and the community with 3D printed stuff, and a whole lot of marketing and advertisement depends on it.
GoPro has always been regularly on the news for enthusiasts and all sorts of people interested in cameras and tech because people have been building all sorts of crazy accessories for the cameras to be used in 360 videos, bullet time stuff, 3D, multi cam setups, and a whole bunch of other ideas. It’s been used again and again in crazy stuff… like mounting it on eagles, pets, darts, and whatnot.
This is all going to get killed if GoPro starts going aggressively after them. No one can expect to start selling an interesting new idea for accessory if GoPro could just start officially making those and then go after them.
The moment the community turns their back to the brand, it’s dead. With stuff like the Yi 4k among others in the market offering similarly spec’d cameras for almost half the price, this community of creators, 3rd parties and accessory makers are the only advantage they have over other brands.
GoPro has long ceased to be the only decent small camera capable of producing good images to be tossed around in all sorts of situations. They don’t have that edge anymore.
And make no mistake, it won’t take long for Yi to come up with a new camera that completely replaces the entire Hero 5 line, including the session… they have already announced a handheld gimbal system, and a VR mount accessory, both for a fraction of the price of GoPro counterparts.
They already lost the price edge, they are about to lose the tech edge, and if they go after the community… what’s left? I’m no specialist, but at least from my point of view, the RedBull strategy of going after extreme sports already kinda reached market saturation. I mean, those are always great, but they don’t have the same power they had few years ago of reaching people who are not particularly interested in extreme sports.
Maybe they realized selfie sticks are the devil’s work.
Instead of suing, GoPro should offer a friendly takeover bid.
If they actually follow through on this lawsuit I will never buy another gopro product again. This is some bad karma seeing as gopro could easily be as small of a company as goscope is in just a couple years.
To me, this sounds as of the following story:
GoPro is desperately seeking for money. They found an investor but he in turn has of course some demands. One of them is that they defend their intellectual properties such as naming or inventions such as the “GoPro mount” – regardless what they have said or done in the past.
Additionally, they want to know more about their customer to generate even more immaterial goods by forcing the customer to create a GoPro-login. Most of them will use the Facebook login because of convenience and this delivers the company a wealth of data they can use not only for marketing purposes.
I cannot see any other reason in their U-turn of company behaviour. They are in the middle of a transformation from a hardware producer to a IP company and this is one step to that goal
I doubt appealing to Nick will serve any purpose. Not that he’s not a good guy because he is but he no longer has the control over the company that he once had before accepting VC money and later going public. Both of these changes came with contractual agreements and obligations. And now with the slump in profitability, he is stuck between a rock and a hard place having to find ways (mainly he is having to allow others to find ways) to maximize profits to keep the investors at bay. Any attempts to quash anything that would increase profitability, no matter how morally wrong he may find it won’t be taken lightly by the investors or the shareholders.
please keep us posted. us underdogs need to stay together and fight for each other