back to article EU gets real in fight against counterfeiters

The European Commission's Counterfeiting and Piracy Observatory was launched today to find better ways to fight fake goods and illegal downloads. The group will be made up of one delegate from each member country working with private sector representatives. The Observatory will work in four main ways: 1. Obtain better …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What about counterfeit dollars?

    "It is a move forward towards cracking this menace - which robs our inventors, designers and creative artists of their just rewards, which destroys jobs and threatens our health and safety,"

    Meh, it's pretty small change. Walk down the highstreet and you see thousands of shops all selling real goods, and on Sunday in the second hand market, only a single dodgy Chinese 'yPod' or somesuch, which nobody thinks is an iPod and doesn't rob Apple because nobody who wants an iPod would buy it thinking it was one...

    For all the talk, it's all a tiny problem.

    On the other hand, those dollars Geithner is creating by his financial fun-gineering, look exactly like real dollars, and he intents to pass of several trillion of them onto unsuspecting punters.... now there's a world class counterfeiting operation if ever I've heard one!

    It's pretty difficult to get serious about some petty little problem, when the whole basis for money, the core of capitalism, is being threatened by the worlds biggest Ponzi scheme and nobody outside of the financial press is reporting it:

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aKm0M7RHXDoQ

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    way to much

    easyest way to stop this would be to charge a price people could afford ..ie: if you tell me that a gucci bag really does cost £300 to make well i'm shocked.. more like £50 using good leather..

    it's all about them making as much money off you as they can buy telling you that you need a bag with a name that costs £300 when an identical bag with no name costs £50..

    so lets stop being weak minded and buy what you need not what they tell you you need

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    So...

    we've had a problem with copied goods for a few decades now. And only now that the music / film industries feel that they are losing money do the government bribes; sorry; protection of the ordinary comsumer become enough to have this sort of thing.

    I bet they'll do two or three dodgy handbag manufacturers and then go all out on downloads.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Fake = Original?

    > Consumers often don't realise fake products exploit child labour ...

    So you're saying that they're coming from the same factories where the original products come from then? ;)

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    dodgy milk products

    Hunnnh... You mean like the powdered milk that Nestlé pwns off on developing countries? Or the tainted milk that China sells? If so, more power to them.

    (somehoe I don't think this is what they mean)

  6. Patrick Bateman
    Unhappy

    @Fake=original?

    Read Roberto Saviano's book Gomorrah. In the first chapter he describes how both real and fake clothes, bags and footwear are made in the same area of sweatshops in Naples in more or less third-world conditions (by Italian people, rather than immigrants). The Camorra mafia then sells the fake ones in shops it owns around the world, sometimes even mixing real and fake goods. The fashion industry knew about this for years but didn't let out a peep because the fake goods were nearly all as high-quality as the real ones, so the more people wore them, the more their own profits rose too. Also, since the Camorra controls the whole labour force and distribution network for the real goods, it could turn the tap off on them at a moment's notice. The book is well worth reading, actually makes you glad to live here in Blighty!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Caveat emptor? Trust your supplier?

    "Consumers often don't realise fake products exploit child labour or the dangers of fake drugs or dodgy milk products."

    In the current economic context, price appears to be an overiding factor rather than product provenance or origin. 'Fake drugs'; one assumes are those over the counter, rather than from a dark street corner. Dodgy milk products refers to the scandal in China.

    Point #1: no-one is going to mock your wife because she bought a fake D+G handbag for £30 - they'll ask where she got it and do they have any left - human nature to bag (sic) a bargain; as for provenance, it looks the same so who can tell, so who cares (!?). However, if the bag had some irritant/chemical embedded in it then its caveat emptor.

    Qu: in the context of total global trade, what percentage is attributable to fake goods? If suddenly ovrnight all fake goods disappeared, and the rightful IPR manufacturers got that turnover, would there be a discount? Answer = not likely.

    Point #2: said drugs and milk products - bought over the counter by the public, presumably from recognised / respected multinationals. If a fake product is carried/sold, and causes injury/death (e.g. said milk products), prosecution of the multi-nationals should apply based on IPR theft or ignorance of safety.

    Point #3: preventing virtual product counterfeiting (downloads) is like nailing jelly to the wall... will be intriguing to see what EU Govt dreams up on this...

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