Ordinary Gweilo

From the BBC:

Counterfeiting is costing the global economy more than $100bn (£51bn) every year and putting human health and safety at risk, a UN agency has said.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo) told a conference that China was the worst offender in the trade of counterfeit goods.

I’d love to know how they calculated that figure of $100bn.  Or did they just make it up?  I think they made it up.

The BBC’s Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says the conference – attended by officials and business leaders – is about more than protecting lucrative brand names or music and film copyright.

Pirated medicines are putting the health of patients at risk, especially in developing countries, said the World Health Organization.  Up to 25% of drugs taken in developing countries are fakes, the WHO estimates.

Fake medicines are certainly a cause for concern, as this report from New Scientist points out:

Experts fear the trade in counterfeit pharmaceuticals kills more people and causes more harm than the trade in illegal narcotics. And it isn’t a great deal less lucrative. In 2005, the US Food and Drug Administration estimated that worldwide sales of fake drugs exceeded $3.5 billion, but other estimates suggest the figure is 10 times as high. The Center for Medicines in the Public Interest, a charity backed by the US pharmaceutical industry, predicts that global sales of fake drugs will reach $75 billion by 2010 unless the trade is curtailed.

Howevever, even if we accept that the FDA’s estimate of $3.5 billion is too low, fake drugs are still a small proportion of the worldwide sales of counterfeit items, but of course it suits big business to focus on them because they are dangerous. 

I’m not buying that.  Most of the trade is in counterfeit DVDs, CDs, handbags, watches. clothing, shoes and other consumer items.  The BBC even illustrated the story with a picture of fake Nike shoes being destroyed, so I think it’s safe to say that’s what we are really talking about.

In most cases, the buyers of these products know exactly what they are getting, and happily buy "fakes" because the price is so much lower.  It’s misleading to say that this is a sale that has been lost to the manufacturer of the original item, because it isn’t that simple. For luxury brands, fakes can even be a good thing because they prove that the brand is desirable, and the people who buy fakes would almost certainly not buy the real thing.   

The other thing that makes me unsympathetic to big business on this issue is that they only too ready to over-charge consumers and limit their choice (if they can get away with it).  These are the people who want to stop you buying a DVD or CD that was intended for the US market (even if they don’t sell it in Hong Kong), add crazy DRM to limit what you can do with DVDs and CDs they will let you buy, who try to prevent you using anything apart from their absurdly over-priced ink cartridges in your printer, and charge UK consumers almost twice as much as US consumers for a Playstation 3.   

Sorry, guys, but you won’t get much sympathy from me.   Especially not with exaggerated claims about how much harm counterfeits are doing to the "global economy".  Isn’t more trade a good thing?