Are counterfeit luxury goods a big problem?

The Wall Street Journal 'number guy' took a look at the statistics about counterfeit products. The statistics show us that around $600 to $650 billion a year is lost to counterfeit products.

But the ‘number guy’ is pointing out that there are two problems with analyzing these statistics:

1.       It’s very hard to get an accurate view on criminal activities, especially when you have to give numbers.

2.       And even if we knew the right number it would still be hard to see if these knock-off products aren’t detracted from the sales of high-fashion labels

So it’s unclear how much these counterfeit products are damaging the designers. But there are more problems, even legal, hurting them: lower-budget knock-offs.

Martijn

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/10/20/are-counterfeit-luxury-goods-a-big-problem/

Yet another study says counterfeit products aren’t really a problem.

At first, there was already proven that counterfeit products aren’t a problem for the manufacturers because most consumers who buy counterfeit goods weren’t being tricked. And due to that fact,  the counterfeit products work as good advertising. And on top of that they have proven that almost 50% of those consumers bought the real thing within two and a half years.

A new research by David Wall, has again proven that the counterfeit products aren’t really a big problem, and that the manufacturers are overrating their losses.  And surprisingly he points out that law enforcement should not waste their time trying to stop the bootleggers.

Be careful because this study focuses on designer goods, so you can’t take in fake pharmaceuticals or fake airplane parts. The actual “harm” depends on what good you are talking about, so it’s very dangerous to talk about “counterfeit products” in general.

And finally he points out that the real problem is that they lump all the things into one category and due to that the law enforcement spends less time focusing on the things that create a real harm.

Martijn

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100829/21095710809.shtml

Australia: Tokidoki takes firm action against sellers of counterfeit products

Tokidoki is an international fashion lifestyle company who makes individual design qualities. When they were alerted in January 2010 that there are counterfeit products going around labeled as Tokidoki they issued proceedings against the two importers of the shipment of fake Tokidoki products.

This case has been settled and Tokidoki is receiving a big amount of money for the costs and damages to their company.

This has not been the first time they took action against sellers and manufacturers of counterfeit products, because for them it’s important to protect their original designs. And with this settelement they hope they can show a signal to all those who dare to counterfeit their products.

Martijn

http://www.mondaq.com/australia/article.asp?articleid=114998

Counterfeiters hurt global trade

At first they give you an example of how you can hurt not your own business but how you can put the whole economy at risk by agreeing in buying and selling counterfeit products.

They point out that when you deal with dubious manufacturers that you are contributing in weakening the supply chain. Because more income is flowing into their operations and not into the legitimate factories.
Do not forget that you also put your own reputation at risk when you deal with counterfeiters and in some cases you can also be held liable.

Martijn

http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Counterfeit-Products-Hurt-International-Trade&id=4925636

How to have an acadamic certificate in one click.

Why would you study at an universtity if you just can buy your degree on the internet? A recent study shows that this isn't so odd. An ivestigation shows that almost a quarter of 1000 Curricula Vitae were fake. Applicants buy a degree with the wanted qualifications or are just inventing new qualifications.

Although we are living in a world dominated by the internet , employers give great value to the paper documents, which can be fake. This is causing important problems which have to be dealth with. Companies can go bankrupt because the person who is managing over its finances doesn't have the right knowledge to manage it. Also the society is in danger, a wrong medical diagnosis can be fatal or the safty of employees is in danger.

Those who sell fake academic certificates escape from prosecution by saying on their site that the certificates are fake. But the blame has to be put on employers. They can easily check if the certificate is genuine, but most don't...

Mathieu De Meulemeester

http://www.nicourses.com/education_articles/fake_degree_certificates.html

Medecines supposed to be good for our health!

In Europe,  the black market for counterfeit medecines has exploded in last few years. They menace our health and stopping the trade in counterfeit medecines has become a substantial case to protect European citizens. Counterfeit medecins are an infraction on intellectual property and te ingredients could be wrongly dosed. The most important source of counterfeit medecines would be the internet, after all you're just one click away from purshasing counterfeit medecines.

The European Commission is collaborating with the European Medicines Agency and other international organizations to stop the trading in counterfeit products. The major goals are to have a better view on the black market, to define the real medecines much better and to develop methods to detect and to check legal medecines. All these suggestions were grouped together and is known as the "pharma package".

It's clear that a lot has to be done. But it is postive that the problem has been noticed by Europe, our health is after all always our number one concern.

Mathieu De Meulemeester

http://www.ehfcn.org/newsletter/2010/q2-2/articles/nr/373

Counterfeit pharmaceuticals

The number of counterfeit f pharmaceuticals that are produced rise especially in China, India and Russia. The counterfeit activities cause damage to pharmaceutical manufacturers’ reputations and after years of research a part of the potential profits of legitimate pharmaceutical manufacturers disappears because of the sales of the counterfeit products. Counterfeit activities happens most in countries where anti-counterfeiting laws are weak and where they do not dispose of resources to identify the criminal activity. The World health organization estimates for countries with emerging economies, that about 25% of total pharmaceuticals sales are counterfeit. But It’s not easy to predict. If they look to the number of incidents that were detected they determine an increase from 200 in 2002  to 2000 in 2009.

 In my opinion counterfeit pharmaceuticals are very dangereous for the health of the people in a society. Because almost all the people trust the pharmaceuticals that they swallow for it’s difficult to see the difference between the real and the fake pharmaceutical.

Kristof Buffel

http://www.pharmacomplianceblog.com/blog/?p=3008