Everyone has seen the sidewalk vendor hawking a too good to be true designer handbag. The clues to counterfeit luxury items used to be so obvious that most people knew exactly what they were buying. This sadly is no longer the case. The production of counterfeit items causes American manufactures to suffer about $200 billion in losses each year according to the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (Freedman, 1999). A large part of counterfeited items are fashion goods. They are usually easily recognizable, especially at the designer or luxury end of the market. The more exclusive a brand is, the more likely it is to be counterfeited (Lai & Zaichkowsky, 1999). As these goods are also high value, there is considerable profit to be made from counterfeiting these brands.
In recent years counterfeiting has become a major headache for designers, consumers, and the government. Manufacturers, mostly in Asia, create knockoffs of popular fashion items in order to sell to unsuspecting consumers at a cheaper price than the originals. While there are a few government agencies devoted to catching these criminals, most are never caught due to the huge demand for these items. Due to the popularity of the Internet and online shopping, the problem is only getting worse. In this paper the research indicates that the production of counterfeit luxury goods has caused significant economic damage by competing with legitimate businesses, eroding the value of the brands that they counterfeit, and by causing the loss of American jobs and preventing the United States from collecting taxes on the counterfeiter’s sales and profits.
The business of counterfeiting makes it harder for genuine retailers to compete in the marketplace. Legitimate businesses...
... middle of paper ...
...993). USA Today Magazine, 122(2579).
Freedman, D.H. (1999). Fakers' paradise. Forbes, 163(7), 49-54.
International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition. (2005). The negative consequences of international intellectual property theft. Retrieved from http://www.iacc.org
Lai, Kay Ka-Yuk and Judith Lynne Zaichkowsky (1999), Brand imitation: Do the Chinese
have different views? Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 16(2), 179-192.
McCausland, C. (2010, April 26). Counterfeit goods: Designer handbags, Rolex watches, and now airplane engine parts. Christian Science Monitor.
Parloff, R., Chandler, C., & Fung, A. (2006). Not exactly counterfeit. Fortune, 153(8), 108-116.
Roth, J.S., & Jacoby, D. (2009). Fashion, copyright, and the proposed design piracy prohibition act. IP Litigator, 15(6), 1-8.
Sommers, M., & Kilaru, N. (2008). Counterfeit corner. IP Litigator, 14(1), 41-42.
Click here to unlock this and over one million essays
Show MoreThe creation and sale of low-cost counterfeits, replicas and knock-offs of brand-name originals is a common occurrence. Across all markets, counterfeiting and Piracy account for $461 billion (OECD/EUIPO, 2016). Only 25 countries have GDPs greater than that. (Statistics Times, 2017) In the world of fashion accessories, there are many companies that look to benefit from consumers’ desires to own something luxurious while paying not-so-luxurious prices. Such is the case of Finer Bags, a company that sold what they advertised as replica or original designer brand bags. Was Finer Bags breaking the law? Was it unethical? Before attempting to answer those questions, it is best if we consider the differences between the terms counterfeit, replica, knock-off, and copy. While all represent closely copied designs of another product, the main difference
Secondly luxury products are easy to counterfeit, some countries such as china, turkey, and other still have to improve their IPR policies
According to the article, “Terror’s purse strings” by Dana Thomas, fashion counterfeiting is not a victimless crime. Fashion counterfeiting is not a victimless crime and the profits from this horrendous crime may benefit international terrorism while also stealing money from the luxurious companies that produce the fashion. Furthermore, Dana Thomas quotes Magnus Ranstorp when she says, “Profits from counterfeiting are one of the three main sources of income supporting international terrorism”. In other words, Thomas used Ranstorp’s quote to in depth the purpose of the article, which is to detail the reprehensible use of counterfeiting fashion items in order to gain money to support terrorism. Fashion counterfeiting will never be a victimless
This case study will examine the moral issues of intellectual property rights and the effects they have on society. There are many varying stances on the subject of intellectual property, with people opposing either or both of intellectual property ownership and creative commons for various reasons. Mandatory copyrighting and patenting of inventions and published works has the potential to majorly restrict advancements in science and culture.
Consumer attitudes are influenced by social pressure which is inclusive of informative and normative susceptibility (Ang, et al., 2001; Bearden, Netemeyer, & Teel, 1989; Wang, Zhang, & Ouyang, 2005). Normative consumers are more concerned with impressing others and ensuring that their behaviors are based on the expectations of others. Since counterfeiting is an unethical and illegal activity and involvement in such an activity does not project a positive image, therefore normative consumers would have negative attitude towards counterfeit products (Ang, et al., 2001; Lord, Lee, & Choong, 2001; Penz
Legislation and regulation: Governments may prevent or allow the sale of Primark’s clothes based on product features, like provenance, materials, and so
Political/Legal: A company’s brand image may be the single most important thing when it comes to the company. Each and everyday a lot of money is spent on making sure that image isn’t tarnished, infringed on by illegal activities. Every year it is estimated that there is 300 billion dollars in sales of counterfeit goods. Also as markets continue to grow, relationships can change effecting for example tariffs.
Hasbro faces a significant threat from counterfeits of its products. As the market for toys and games is increasing globally, the parallel market for counterfeit toys is also on the rise. Such activity rises especially during the festive months when toy sales are expected to be high. Counterfeits pose a threat to the toys and games market, not just in terms of lost business and brand dilution, but also by selling products that can be potentially dangerous to children of all ages. Low quality counterfeits reduce consumer confidence in branded products like Hasbro. Counterfeits not only deprive revenues for the company but also dilute its brand image.
Counterfeiting is a 700 billion dollar industry and is being recognized globally as a dangerous economic problem. There is a good chance that the counterfeit item you purchased is helping the production of other counterfeit products or even organized crime. Counterfeiting goes way beyond fashion, it is in every category of product, no matter how real and safe you may think they are. There are counterfeit products in electronics, architecture, motor vehicles, aviation, military, medicine, and the list doesn’t stop there. Counterfeit products can have major safety issues.
...prove. Additionally, brand owners should consistently to combat with counterfeit such as working in tandem to address the sale of counterfeit by introducing information technology such as code verifying technics. Universally adopted code technics will protect authority of brand respect origins of luxury products.
2006). Burberry’s product line, especially the famous trademark plaid, unfortunately, is not difficult to imitate, the development of “fake Burberry” affects their revenue. In 2010, Burberry won $1.5 million in counterfeit case (Matthew 2010), but the counterfeit apparel and accessories is still the key issue for all major luxury brand (Maman 2012).
Fake brands become popular such as in electronics, watches and wear. These fake brands found in every place like in the street, store and even in malls. These fake brands consider counterfeit products of original products such as shirts, phones, shoes, headphones and headset. Fake brands should be prohibited because it is formed from low materials which will be seen as low quality, these counterfeit products make companies of the original products lose much money and it makes diseases such as counterfeit products of headset.
Because of its intangible nature, and particularly the increase of the digital domain and the internet as a whole, computers and cyber piracy make it easier for people to steal many forms of intellectual property. Due to this major threat, intellectual property rights owners’ should take every single measure to protect their rights. Unless these rights are either sold, exchanged, transferred, or appropriately licensed for use in exchange for a monetary fee, they should be protected at all cost. In order to protect these rights, the federal and states governments have passed numerous laws and statutes to protect intellectual property from misappropriation and infringement. “The source of federal copyright and patent law originates with the Copyright and Patent ...
Informal sector of any economy comprises of all production of goods and service which contributes to official gross national product but not in books of government or officials. Shadow economy, black/grey economy, underground economy, parallel economy, ‘off the book’ and ‘under the table’ comes under a larger umbrella of informal sector. With every passing day economic activities are increasing and making this world a global village. Thanks to channel members that spread the product from manufacturer to final consumer with the help of set of distributors that are present worldwide. But this growing market can cause unwitting customers to buy a product from unauthorised distributor, buy the product which not made for that particular region or country, buy with warranty that is not authentic or worse is buying a counterfeit product. Concept of grey market takes under the consideration of leakage from regular (formal) supply chain inform of finished/semi-finished or raw products. This leakage is mainly done in form two ways. One is theft and other in counterfeit products. In simple word the difference between the two, is nature of the product. If original product is being sold through unauthorized distribution network, this means that its theft from formal supply chain. That is again caused by several reasons and in different forms. On the other hand if the product in not genuine, than its problem of counterfeit product (product that is replica of original)
With the growing trend of outsourcing manufacturing processes to emerging economies, brands are facing an increasing growth of counterfeit goods. These goods attempt to imitate luxury brands, which in the long run erode the value and the reputation of the brands (Staake et al. 2009). Consequently, counterfeits are becoming a growing concern for status, prestige and luxury brands.