Beware Counterfeit Goods

Every Christmas period brings more propaganda about "counterfeit" or "fake" goods, bringing the same old reheated arguments that it's like a stale greatest hits of excuses. Every year they find the same establishment outlets to run these stories. Here's another, dutifully brought to you by the BBC.

The premise as always is about "rogue traders" who undermine "legit traders" and sell goods that (tick all that apply):

• Have not passed safety tests
• Fund other various crimes from human / weapon / drug trafficking to that old favourite; terrorism
• Deny real traders income

There is an assumption that consumers are unsuspecting in what they're buying, that somehow they don't know that a video game bought for £5 from a flea market on a domestically burned DVD with the name scribbled in marker pen and maybe a cheap inkjet photocopy of the cover badly sliced to fit is not in fact the real deal. They know it's a copy. They see the difference in being able to play a DRM free version of a video game for £5 is a vast difference from buying a DRM infested version of the same thing for £40+. This is not what I'd call "counterfeit" as it's obvious to both buyer and seller that it's not legit. Counterfeit is about passing something off as legit when it's not.

If those same video games are on sale and their makers have gone to great lengths to get the right boxes, inlay card paper, proper pressed DVD process etc then it'd be counterfeit.

People know that any major retailer will always sell only legit stock. It's more than their licences are worth to even try a little sideline to squeeze extra profits. So people know by where they're shopping and the prices they pay, whether something is legit or not. This is further confused by those bastions of free trade and their agreements to make some stock legal or illegal by the label.

When two pairs of jeans made in the same factory, at the same production line by the same workers can be both legal and illegal, there's something wrong. The pair that's made to be sold in the US and Canada gets one label, where the pair made to be sold in the EU gets a different one. Traders selling the US / Canadian stock in the EU get that stock classified as "counterfeit". They are the same. The prices are vastly different, so legit traders in the UK have to pay premium rates for stock "made for the UK market", where rogue traders can use the free market to buy legit stock from a US or Canadian supplier to sell in the UK, undercut the legit traders and still make a profit.

For those who want to know more of this abnormality, it's called the North American Free Trade Agreement. It's one of many barriers to free trade that exist around the world. Like all legislation drafted by corporations, it's named in a very Orwellian way. The idea of "free trade" is what it seeks to clamp down on with certain rules.

When legit goods are legally classed as counterfeit simply because they break some legal convention and were made for a different market, the strength of the counterfeit argument is weakened. People understand the fake aspect, but the "real, but not really real" doesn't wash.

Counterfeit goods will not be of the same quality as the genuine item and may in some cases be hazardous as it is likely they will not have gone through any safety checks.

This definition of "counterfeit" blows away the argument of not being of the same quality, or not having passed the same safety tests. It's the same stock that's legally sold in large retail chains across the US and Canada. It is therefore of saleable quality and deemed safe by US laws.

So if people know and still buy anyway, which they clearly do; this means there's a disconnect between what the rights holders and the customers feel about their products. A movie studio may decide that their latest movie is worth £20, but it's only worth what people are willing to pay for it.

Another argument the rights holders like to trot out time after time, no matter how many times it's been debunked, is that every sale of a fake is a lost sale for the genuine article. When the prices are vastly different, and money tight, the vast majority of people who buy fakes would only experience that product at that price. They would spend £5 on a video game, but if the only option was £45 they wouldn't buy it. Rights holders often see their own products in isolation, customers buy a wide range of items and services, so one game may not make that much of a difference, but ripple that through a LOT of products and you have a HUGE difference. As the Tesco slogan aptly points out: "Every little helps".

If I only have £10 to spend and want the latest GT video game, I can go to a flea market and be home playing it, or I could go legit and buy a proper DRM infested version right? If the "lost sale" theory is accurate, I must be able to buy that game for £10 legally somewhere. If not, there is no lost sale as I would never have bought it legally in the first place. Whether that's because I couldn't afford it at the time, was not prepared to wait and save, or just didn't think the game was worth the official selling price according to my income and the amount of use I'd get out of it doesn't matter. The point is that if I wouldn't or couldn't have bought the official version, there is no lost sale.

Digital based products are the same when in use. When you buy a movie, the box, label, inlay card is only a storage case, what you're buying is the ability to see that movie on your screen, coming out of your speakers and the enjoyment it brings. Whether it comes from a blank DVD burned on a PC or a pressed DVD coming from a factory is irrelevant. Video games and ebooks are the same. Many games have onscreen instructions, there's plenty of guides online and most gamers don't bother with the instruction books, they just dive in and explore even when they do have the official versions.

When rights holders don't provide a compelling product at a compelling price, customers will make their own judgement, and often decide to get them cheap at their local flea market. The solution? Abandon DRM; it only punishes the genuine customers who DO pay your stated prices. Give people value for money and don't give the impression you're out to screw every penny out of them at every turn. Treat them with respect. When you cripple the products when they're actually in use, you devalue your official products in comparison to the fakes where it really matters; in use. Yet you have some belief that people will happily pay many times the price for an inferior product?

It also helps if the message doesn't shift part way in. Note the talk of "counterfeit" goods from Trading Standards, where Thames Valley Police seem to be thinking the discussion is about "stolen" goods. Just because it's not the genuine article, does not mean it's stolen.

Something that's stolen, means it does not belong to you. The companies themselves did not make these fakes, or counterfeits (excepting the examples above), therefore they have no ownership of them, they therefore can't have them "stolen".