Americans adore me, and will go on adoring me, until I say something nice about them - GBS
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Cost of counterfeiting is hard to quantify
FOLLOWING A LONG STUDY of the financial and consumer impact of counterfeited goods, the US Congress has found that it is hard to accurately assess the cost of faked goods on an industry by industry basis.
Congress found that each method of estimating the cost was flawed, having spoken to many experts who said that it was actually impossible to quantify the impact on the worldwide economy.
In a far-reaching survey the Government Accountability Office (GAO) interviewed experts from government agencies, industry groups, and academics, and by the sounds of it, read a lot of relevant materials.
The GAO said that undoubtedly there were negative effects, for both businesses and consumers. It singled out pharmaceuticals as good examples of bad counterfeit products, adding that they could lead to "lost sales, lost brand value, and reduced incentives to innovate", but could not accurately predict them.
Counterfeiting isn't all bad though, whatever Lord Mandelson says, as although it may slow a country's economy as a whole, it can have positive effects on consumers, mostly because counterfeit products are cheaper than the alternatives.
One thing that could help the GAO to improve its findings would be the ability to predict whether consumers would buy a legitimate product if its counterfeit equivalent were not available. This, it added, would have an enormous impact on developing accurate estimates.
Overall, the GAO said that counterfeiting represented a 'sizeable' problem to businesses. µ
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"One thing that could help the GAO to improve its findings would be the ability to predict whether consumers would buy a legitimate product if its counterfeit equivalent were not available."
the music industry should learn from this. if the downloads where not available, would all those people really buy it instead? I'm sure they would find out they're really only loosing a small fraction of what they claim to be loosing
Does that mean that the iPhone would be boycotted....
80
@BB
From the oxford dictionary:
profiteer
verb [often as noun profiteering] make an excessive or unfair profit.
noun a person who profiteers.
And there are laws against that in various countries I might add, although obviously currently not really enforced at all.
More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profiteering_%28business%29
Well, I used to think counterfeiting was just enterprising and rebellious and competitive folks letting us have "branded" stuff of reasonable quality at fantastic prices.
Then I saw a documentary - apologies, I can't recall the name, but it was an English documentary.
It was about a very real darkside to the counterfeiting trade.
Many counterfeits are actually cheap, not because of legitimate competition, but because the illegal factories the products are made in have absolutely no accountability to local authorities for trade conditions. These are *true* sweatshops!! No safe work environment, no regulated working conditions (not even to the poor standards of the countries the factories are in, because they are illegal, secret factories).
Some actually utilise genuine slave labour in this day and age! Where a worker lives and works in the factory, provided food, but working for *all* waking hours!
But wait! There's more: ...
Of course there's a boss for these factories, earning big from cheap or slave labour, not paying taxes in their local country (which is a bigger loss for those usually poor countries).
And...
Oftentimes, these counterfeit factories operate as a way to launder money from the drug trade, the people trafficking trade, the illegal arms trade and organised crime in general.
And they sell their stuff by recruiting poor sods in countries like the UK to receive and onsell them on eBay - so it looks like you're buying something from some local home business owner, but you're buying a highly criminally involved fake from organised crime. The local sellers get into this stuff and sometimes they are innocent, sometimes they are involved - but they're always under pressure from higher thugs.
I say again, on a personal level, I think quality goods at competitive price are great and I don't personally care for expensive brand labels or have much sympathy for them (sometimes maybe a bit - they do spend on research and design). It's just a bit horrific to imagine being involved in organised crime, slavery and money laundering just by buying something cheap, yet nice on eBay.
With music and movies it's easy - if you're paying for a pirate copy - DON'T. Get it from a friend.
For material things - I was truly disappointed when I saw this documentary ... it looks like I will have to curb my desire for designer knock-offs - just choose the thingies that I *really* want to show off, and pay for them properly ... and shun the rest of big fashion.
Extra danger: in some cases - these counterfeits have been successfully integrated into the genuine products chain - that is to say, folks paying high prices at normal shops end up buying the fakes - if it wasn't supporting slavery and crime, I'd laugh. The biggest danger is when fake pharmaceutical medicines get into real chemist shops - it has happened!
Yikes!
Well if that naked king had a designer label around his neck then there are people alive today who would pay a small fortune for that suit the king wore.
Those people are what Armani and Gucci call "customers". Some call them suckers, others call them well dressed rich people in nice cars, in nice houses, sending their kids to the better schools, etc.
Of course there are plenty of them who are kredit-karded and about to go wallop over their £800 shoes, £500 handbag, etc.
Vanity insanity, or well dressed rich people.
And some designer clothes last well and stay looking good after many washes.
Louis Vuitton bags and luggage is pretty hardwearing too, but it kills a bit of my soul everytime money is spent on them! ;-)
Reg: If you want to join the People's Front of Judea, you have to really hate the Romans.
Brian: I do!
Reg: Oh yeah, how much?
Brian: A lot!
Reg: Right, you're in.
your objective argument is irrelevant. Luxury goods are priced according to what idiots with too much money will pay -- and there are more of those around than you know; you just don't see them because they stick to exclusive hang-outs. Nothing to do with what down-to-earth you and me evaluate as objective value. A trip to a well-stocked magazine rack will open your eyes on this point; just skim magazines intended for the well-to-do (especially if slanted toward women). They're not even shy about mentioning prices in ads, because it being known as ridiculously expensive is part of the "status" it confers.
The value of "designer" names is snob appeal -- FAKERY besides materialist, and since price truly is irrelevant to people who have ways to skim from the labor of many others, whether an item is decorative is the only consideration.
My fake Armani wallet lasted longer than a genuine Versace one .. so go figure what's better quality ... and looks just like real
The issue is not based on the genuine good being overpriced.
If the counterfeit good was of similar quality to the genuine good, they wouldn't need (or for that matter want) to use the same name and likeness of the genuine good (that is, counterfeit it).
The real loser is the consumer who can't tell the difference: those who purchase counterfeit product, thinking it is the genuine, and don't get what they pay for.
(The difference between counterfeiting and noncommercial piracy is that the pirate /knows and accepts/ they're not getting the genuine article)
"Overpriced" is a relative term. Some people think anything that isn't free is "overpriced." Companies should be free to price their products at whatever they feel is right.
What you're correct about is that consumers should boycott or just avoid the products that they feel are not priced at their value. That is the choice of the consumer. A wise company will be sensitive to the needs of their customers and their locales, adjusting prices to maximize their profits.
if genuine good were not overpriced in the first place then counterfeit goods would not appear.
too many companies over-value their products by associating their 'brand' with high quality and thus they inflate the price.
if only consumers were astute enough to boycott such ripoff items then the market would respond with honest pricing and decent quality.
i vote with my feet and 2 fingers
The cost of counterfeiting is almost hard to quantify as getting a straight comment about ACTA from these crooked fat-cats glaring down from their ivory towers made of failed business models.
The GAO should go "pine some fjords".