I remember reading, a while back, about the counterfeit "Samsung" products coming out of the counterfeit "Samsung" factory, which had a big "Samsung" sign on the front.
You got the impression, in the interview with the people running this operation, that they sort of had the idea that because they faithfully copied Samsung products in their Samsung plant that they were Samsung, in every way that mattered, and the fact that the actual Samsung people thought they should be killed with fire was just sort of splitting hairs.
I have no idea how you do business with that mentality, if it's being done with the tacit approval of the government.
This is a tough issue, but the truth is that the government encourages it. Many of these companies are owned by family members of politicians, both local and national (not uncommon elsewhere in Asia). The government has a goal of reaching western levels of economic development in a couple of decades from now. The other reason is to keep unrest down.
The idea of economic expansion is a good one of course, but is being done with terrible pollution, where even their government estimated that almost 700,000 people died directly as a result of it. Independent estimates range as high as three times that.
They use cheap counterfeited goods to do two things. One, as mentioned is to give the population goods they can buy and be happy about sharing in the wealth. The second is to build up industries to compete with those that produce the "real" goods.
Despite worldwide complaints about this, they only make "show" raids infrequently, allowing them to build up again once the publicity is over.
This isn't to take away from the large majority of their country's production, which is legitimate.
Is this the kind of thing we can expect from a Verizon iPhone or iPhone wannabe from Verizon, or have they learned a thing or two over the last two years? (rhetorical)
This is a tough issue, but the truth is that the government encourages it. Many of these companies are owned by family members of politicians, both local and national (not uncommon elsewhere in Asia). The government has a goal of reaching western levels of economic development in a couple of decades from now. The other reason is to keep unrest down.
The idea of economic expansion is a good one of course, but is being done with terrible pollution, where even their government estimated that almost 700,000 people died directly as a result of it. Independent estimates range as high as three times that.
They use cheap counterfeited goods to do two things. One, as mentioned is to give the population goods they can buy and be happy about sharing in the wealth. The second is to build up industries to compete with those that produce the "real" goods.
Despite worldwide complaints about this, they only make "show" raids infrequently, allowing them to build up again once the publicity is over.
This isn't to take away from the large majority of their country's production, which is legitimate.
As long as there is a market for counterfeited goods, there will be someone willing to produce them. The second largest market for counterfeited goods is the US. We even go so far as to justify pirated content, because the producers "make too much".
I've done quite a bit of business in China as well, and I found their legal system quite corrupt. Corruption comes from regulations that prevent people from getting what they want. Nothing was more restrictive that rule by the Chinese Communists under Mao. The population had needs and wants that were only satisfied by bribing the very people employed to deny them access.
As China adopts a freer economy (which it is doing) the need for corruption to get what you want/need declines. It will also make it easier, and more profitable, for legitimate government enforcement of property rights laws.
If this is true then counterfeiting is not all that popular. To some degree people buy knock off brands in the US, but its not nearly as apart of our culture as it seems to be in China. I know of no one who wants an obvious iPhone copy cat. It would be a clear sign that you cannot afford the real thing and no one would find that cool. People are mostly satisfied enough with the plethora of discount brands, most don't feel the need to have to sport high end labels. As far as phones instead of an iPhone people are happy with an LG or Samusung.
Here in NYC the place you go to get counterfeit merchandise is China Town.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregg Thurman
As long as there is a market for counterfeited goods, there will be someone willing to produce them. The second largest market for counterfeited goods is the US. We even go so far as to justify pirated content, because the producers "make too much".
This is the kind of unique feature that I would have thought Apple and their carrier connection would bring more quickly than they have been doing on this end. If Apple can implement it they will probably not charge $3.50 a month for it.
Basically, the app allows you to manually filter your phone calls?weeding out private and restricted numbers and sending those calls directly to voicemail. You can also choose to ignore specific numbers and block all calls within a predetermined time frame. During that time, the service can automatically send text messages to callers with information about your availability, why you blocked them, and/or why they suck.
As long as there is a market for counterfeited goods, there will be someone willing to produce them. The second largest market for counterfeited goods is the US. We even go so far as to justify pirated content, because the producers "make too much".
I've done quite a bit of business in China as well, and I found their legal system quite corrupt. Corruption comes from regulations that prevent people from getting what they want. Nothing was more restrictive that rule by the Chinese Communists under Mao. The population had needs and wants that were only satisfied by bribing the very people employed to deny them access.
As China adopts a freer economy (which it is doing) the need for corruption to get what you want/need declines. It will also make it easier, and more profitable, for legitimate government enforcement of property rights laws.
As far as I'm concerned, I have no excuse for piracy. i've been fighting it for a long time. The excuses pirates give are self serving.
People who buy counterfeit goods there, or anywhere else are obviously why they are made. But governments normally try to stop such things. In China, they use counterfeiting as an economic step up. It gives manufacturers a chance to learn how to produce goods that will sell, not only in China, but later, in other countries as well.
It survives with the support, and even encouragement of the government.
If this is true then counterfeiting is not all that popular. To some degree people buy knock off brands in the US, but its not nearly as apart of our culture as it seems to be in China. I know of no one who wants an obvious iPhone copy cat. It would be a clear sign that you cannot afford the real thing and no one would find that cool. People are mostly satisfied enough with the plethora of discount brands, most don't feel the need to have to sport high end labels. As far as phones instead of an iPhone people are happy with an LG or Samusung.
Here in NYC the place you go to get counterfeit merchandise is China Town.
Several major areas of counterfeiting we see being sold here in the US are watches, scarves, various women's bags, shoes, CD/DVD's, and now that Blu-Ray will be manufactured in China, we will begin to see them as well.
DVD is largely the one I know people have no problem patronizing. DVD's of movies that arenew in the theater are being sold everywhere.
The other items you mention I am aware that they are counterfeited. I would argue its not widely across US culture to feel the need to wear fake designer watches or scarves and seriously attempt to pass it off as the real article. Its true I've seen women do this with hand bags. Depending on your social circles it can be embarrassing if you are caught with an obvious fake.
I think more often than not with fashion people will buy the discount brands that create apparel that appear close enough to the premium brand without getting sued.
I think most people are content to go to Wal-Mart or Target and purchase the discount brand rather than go through all of the hassle of actually attempting to perpetrate a counterfeit of a premium brand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
Several major areas of counterfeiting we see being sold here in the US are watches, scarves, various women's bags, shoes, CD/DVD's, and now that Blu-Ray will be manufactured in China, we will begin to see them as well.
DVD is largely the one I know people have no problem patronizing. DVD's of movies that arenew in the theater are being sold everywhere.
The other items you mention I am aware that they are counterfeited. I would argue its not widely across US culture to feel the need to wear fake designer watches or scarves and seriously attempt to pass it off as the real article. Its true I've seen women do this with hand bags. Depending on your social circles it can be embarrassing if you are caught with an obvious fake.
I think more often than not with fashion people will buy the discount brands that create apparel that appear close enough to the premium brand without getting sued.
I think most people are content to go to Wal-Mart or Target and purchase the discount brand rather than go through all of the hassle of actually attempting to perpetrate a counterfeit of a premium brand.
There are more watches out there than you would think. The fakes, some of which come from Switzerland, are VERY good. I've seen some that I couldn't tell were fakes. You can find lots of sites that sell fake watches. You'd be surprised at how popular they are. They call them "replicas". Illegal, but they are still out there.
The other items are popular as well. Again, these copies are very good. in some cases, even legit dealers were unaware they had fakes.
Comments
I remember reading, a while back, about the counterfeit "Samsung" products coming out of the counterfeit "Samsung" factory, which had a big "Samsung" sign on the front.
You got the impression, in the interview with the people running this operation, that they sort of had the idea that because they faithfully copied Samsung products in their Samsung plant that they were Samsung, in every way that mattered, and the fact that the actual Samsung people thought they should be killed with fire was just sort of splitting hairs.
I have no idea how you do business with that mentality, if it's being done with the tacit approval of the government.
This is a tough issue, but the truth is that the government encourages it. Many of these companies are owned by family members of politicians, both local and national (not uncommon elsewhere in Asia). The government has a goal of reaching western levels of economic development in a couple of decades from now. The other reason is to keep unrest down.
The idea of economic expansion is a good one of course, but is being done with terrible pollution, where even their government estimated that almost 700,000 people died directly as a result of it. Independent estimates range as high as three times that.
They use cheap counterfeited goods to do two things. One, as mentioned is to give the population goods they can buy and be happy about sharing in the wealth. The second is to build up industries to compete with those that produce the "real" goods.
Despite worldwide complaints about this, they only make "show" raids infrequently, allowing them to build up again once the publicity is over.
This isn't to take away from the large majority of their country's production, which is legitimate.
What will we see next?
Now there are new reports of Microsoft making a phone for Verizon.
What will we see next?
Verizon in final talks with Psystar to build iPhone knock off using official iPhone OS?
Verizon in final talks with Psystar to build iPhone knock off using official iPhone OS?
Oh, well that would be the best!
This is a tough issue, but the truth is that the government encourages it. Many of these companies are owned by family members of politicians, both local and national (not uncommon elsewhere in Asia). The government has a goal of reaching western levels of economic development in a couple of decades from now. The other reason is to keep unrest down.
The idea of economic expansion is a good one of course, but is being done with terrible pollution, where even their government estimated that almost 700,000 people died directly as a result of it. Independent estimates range as high as three times that.
They use cheap counterfeited goods to do two things. One, as mentioned is to give the population goods they can buy and be happy about sharing in the wealth. The second is to build up industries to compete with those that produce the "real" goods.
Despite worldwide complaints about this, they only make "show" raids infrequently, allowing them to build up again once the publicity is over.
This isn't to take away from the large majority of their country's production, which is legitimate.
As long as there is a market for counterfeited goods, there will be someone willing to produce them. The second largest market for counterfeited goods is the US. We even go so far as to justify pirated content, because the producers "make too much".
I've done quite a bit of business in China as well, and I found their legal system quite corrupt. Corruption comes from regulations that prevent people from getting what they want. Nothing was more restrictive that rule by the Chinese Communists under Mao. The population had needs and wants that were only satisfied by bribing the very people employed to deny them access.
As China adopts a freer economy (which it is doing) the need for corruption to get what you want/need declines. It will also make it easier, and more profitable, for legitimate government enforcement of property rights laws.
Here in NYC the place you go to get counterfeit merchandise is China Town.
As long as there is a market for counterfeited goods, there will be someone willing to produce them. The second largest market for counterfeited goods is the US. We even go so far as to justify pirated content, because the producers "make too much".
As long as there is a market for counterfeited goods, there will be someone willing to produce them. The second largest market for counterfeited goods is the US. We even go so far as to justify pirated content, because the producers "make too much".
I've done quite a bit of business in China as well, and I found their legal system quite corrupt. Corruption comes from regulations that prevent people from getting what they want. Nothing was more restrictive that rule by the Chinese Communists under Mao. The population had needs and wants that were only satisfied by bribing the very people employed to deny them access.
As China adopts a freer economy (which it is doing) the need for corruption to get what you want/need declines. It will also make it easier, and more profitable, for legitimate government enforcement of property rights laws.
As far as I'm concerned, I have no excuse for piracy. i've been fighting it for a long time. The excuses pirates give are self serving.
People who buy counterfeit goods there, or anywhere else are obviously why they are made. But governments normally try to stop such things. In China, they use counterfeiting as an economic step up. It gives manufacturers a chance to learn how to produce goods that will sell, not only in China, but later, in other countries as well.
It survives with the support, and even encouragement of the government.
If this is true then counterfeiting is not all that popular. To some degree people buy knock off brands in the US, but its not nearly as apart of our culture as it seems to be in China. I know of no one who wants an obvious iPhone copy cat. It would be a clear sign that you cannot afford the real thing and no one would find that cool. People are mostly satisfied enough with the plethora of discount brands, most don't feel the need to have to sport high end labels. As far as phones instead of an iPhone people are happy with an LG or Samusung.
Here in NYC the place you go to get counterfeit merchandise is China Town.
Several major areas of counterfeiting we see being sold here in the US are watches, scarves, various women's bags, shoes, CD/DVD's, and now that Blu-Ray will be manufactured in China, we will begin to see them as well.
The other items you mention I am aware that they are counterfeited. I would argue its not widely across US culture to feel the need to wear fake designer watches or scarves and seriously attempt to pass it off as the real article. Its true I've seen women do this with hand bags. Depending on your social circles it can be embarrassing if you are caught with an obvious fake.
I think more often than not with fashion people will buy the discount brands that create apparel that appear close enough to the premium brand without getting sued.
I think most people are content to go to Wal-Mart or Target and purchase the discount brand rather than go through all of the hassle of actually attempting to perpetrate a counterfeit of a premium brand.
Several major areas of counterfeiting we see being sold here in the US are watches, scarves, various women's bags, shoes, CD/DVD's, and now that Blu-Ray will be manufactured in China, we will begin to see them as well.
DVD is largely the one I know people have no problem patronizing. DVD's of movies that arenew in the theater are being sold everywhere.
The other items you mention I am aware that they are counterfeited. I would argue its not widely across US culture to feel the need to wear fake designer watches or scarves and seriously attempt to pass it off as the real article. Its true I've seen women do this with hand bags. Depending on your social circles it can be embarrassing if you are caught with an obvious fake.
I think more often than not with fashion people will buy the discount brands that create apparel that appear close enough to the premium brand without getting sued.
I think most people are content to go to Wal-Mart or Target and purchase the discount brand rather than go through all of the hassle of actually attempting to perpetrate a counterfeit of a premium brand.
There are more watches out there than you would think. The fakes, some of which come from Switzerland, are VERY good. I've seen some that I couldn't tell were fakes. You can find lots of sites that sell fake watches. You'd be surprised at how popular they are. They call them "replicas". Illegal, but they are still out there.
The other items are popular as well. Again, these copies are very good. in some cases, even legit dealers were unaware they had fakes.