What's the big deal with fakes?

Published on Tuesday 19 February 2008 07:55

WHEN last I checked, child poverty, human slavery, toxic pollution and other sad ailments were still having their way around the globe – despite the fact that the public should care about them, and somehow make them stop.

That's the thing with us members of the public – when it comes down to it we can be rather difficult to get motivated, despite the inherent correctness of what it is we should be caring about.

There's something else we should be caring about, apparently; fakes. Fake goods are everywhere, from DVDs to premium-brand footwear and perfumes.

Some estimates claim that counterfeiting accounts for seven per cent of world trade.

All over the world, criminal networks and other nasty people are making a fortune out of counterfeit products.

But here's the thing: the public don't care, and we know this because the public are the end consumers. "But they should care!" squeal the brand-owners. Unfortunately for the likes of Burberry, its brand-owning chums the public have a strong track record of not caring about things that other people tell them they should care about.

Not all counterfeiting is the same. Regardless of what the brand-owners might tell you, there's a significant difference between distributing fake luxury handbags and fake Ibuprofen.

While consuming the latter could result in a one-off resolution of all your headaches for all time to come, buying the former might only result in people at the bus-stop remarking on where you got the money to buy a Louis Vuitton suitcase, and how well it goes with your Lidl carrier bag.

The mere thought of counterfeit medical products is enough to have most consumers running to their MPs demanding armed guards outside every branch of Boots. The problem is that the same consumers will be happy to do this running, wearing the latest Nike counterfeit jogging pants.

The two problems simply cannot be presented in the same way, even if the counterfeit products originate with the same shady perpetrators.

Us public are quite selfish in our behaviour. That is to say, we prefer to look after our own direct interests first. So if something can be seen as directly dangerous to us, we will make sure our representatives have it taken off the shelves before you can squeal BSE kebabs.

DVD and similar lower-end product owners deserve some sympathy, and probably stronger action. It would not take a economist to guess that many, many DVD sales are lost each year because people can, and do, buy cheaper bootleg versions. DVDs are relatively affordable and, as such, without the illegal copies, all beneficiaries of the original DVDs would do far better. The same is true of books, CDs, software etcetera.

It is difficult to see how this maintains when one compares a ten quid rip-off Celine handbag and an original costing many hundreds of pounds. There are no lost sales – only unlikely people carrying Celine handbags looking chuffed with their minor bit of status elevation that will fall apart after a year at most.

If brand-owners want to motivate the public to work with them on overcoming world-wide fakery, they're going to have to come up with something other than the fact that the public should care. The public have got all sorts of things to care about already.

A sonic solution

Perhaps you are aware of "the mosquito" – a sonic device that emits a high-pitched sound that is extremely unpleasant on the ears of people under 25.

Some 3500 of these electric youth squeakers are in place all over England and the question being asked is – how soon can we get them? More interesting, though, is the phenomenon whereby assorted Edinburgh youth are inspired to gather by the noises coming from shops selling what has been described as "tartan tat". Hunter Square, Cockburn Street and the top of the Royal Mile are known haunts of angst-troubled teens, all apparently mesmerised by the daily broadcast of slightly-too-fast traditional Scottish jig music.

All we need to do is make the tunes mobile and lead the kids away, Pied Piper style. The powers of Jimmy Shand were always misunderstood.

An expensive buy

Did I miss something on the British Government's last set of election promises? Was there an item on the list that said "Buy a random financial institution with 100 BILLION of taxpayers' money"? I think we might have remembered that.

I sometimes see Alistair Darling walking about town and must remember to ask him whether there are any other "not to be missed" purchasing opportunities we've signed up for. For that money we could have bankrolled RBS's bid for ABN AMRO twice over and got them to print individual fivers la Jack Nicklaus, with all our pictures on them.