I had the good fortune of speaking on a panel Thursday afternoon at the IACC's Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C. Counterfeiting usually is considered to involve physical goods. I certainly see that with some of my members in CDs, DVDs, software, etc. Of course, the creative works on those pieces of plastic can also be traded online, which is proving its own challenges. (I have other members who have more "pure" counterfeiting problems, such as the sports leagues who see jerseys and other licensed apparel counterfeited.)

Most of my time as a policy analyst and advocate I find myself dealing with the virtual theft online, not the physical. But the physical theft is very real. It is in the billions of dollars annually, and it is generally part of large orgazined crime syndicates. These are not good people. They are not adhering to child labor laws in the manufacture of that purse or pair of jeans. The money often goes to fund other criminal activities, some that even the most extreme opponents of copyright would have to agree are henious, such as terror.

It was sobering, talking with some of the attendees and hearing their stories. I was also struck by how sophisticated the counterfeiters are getting. They had demos up of fake Pampers, Energizer batteries Crest toothpaste (after what we just saw with toothpaste from China, does anyone want to buy counterfeit?). Some products are so realistic that honest stores are duped and purchase them wholesale.

We all know one way to tell if something is counterfeit, if the designer or the creator is not being compensated for the work: price. If the price is too good to be true, it is.

You can also look at who is selling it. I was in New York City this weekend. Walking through SoHo was a contrast. You'd be on a long block lined with warehouse-type buildings that had been converted into large furniture galleries (apparently rich people right now like furniture that is made of lucite, because we saw a lot of that for absurd prices). The merchandise they were selling was silly, but it was pricey, and the stores were very spacious and quiet. Then you'd hit a cross street, and you'd have to go through a phalanx of vendors, waving packages in your face yelling "DVD! DVD! DVD! YOU WANT DVD? DVD!" I observed that the cover art on the DVD cases seemed quite real; they were printed out well. The only real giveaway was that the plastic cases were too thin for a standard DVD case. I also noted that whatever table I walked past, the same DVDs kept being shoved in my face. These weren't the counterfeiters; they were the end of the supply chain. Someone somewhere else was supplying these folks with the same counterfeits.

An artist is hurt the same whether the work is taken in physical form or digital. For those out there who rationalize taking digital goods, I wish they could understand this important point,.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 5:35 am by Patrick Ross and is filed under copyright opponents, counterfeit, creators, economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.