When there's a robbery, there are the actual robbers and there are the accomplices. The scouts, the person driving the getaway car, the ones misleading or delaying the police, the look-outs, the people providing a hide-away and, of course, the fencers who help selling the stolen goods. And more, perhaps. (Organising robberies isn't on our CV's.)
Sales of Counterfeits In Stores and In the Street
When it comes to counterfeiting, there are the actual producers of counterfeit goods, of course. But there are also the scouts - identifying products to copy, the "designers" exploring how they are made and devising how to produce something that can pass as genuine. Maybe there's someone providing them with cheap, forced labour. Add the "distributors" a.k.a. smugglers and probably some officials who get paid off to turn a blind eye. And finally, the street vendors and other outlets.
How About Online Sales of Counterfeits?
But, nowadays, maybe the most common way of buying counterfeit goods is online. The same for the marketing of counterfeits. Then the range of accomplices develops and gets increasingly complicated. But lets look at some suggestions:
Online Influencers (some, not all)
In the EUIPO report "Intellectual Property and Youth Scoreboard 2022" respondents tell about online influencers openly marketing counterfeit products as well as sites where they can be found. Isn't that incitement of a crime? The report quotes a 2021 UK IPO study where 11% of respondents who had bought counterfeits intentionally, mentioned recommendations from influencers and/or famous people as a motivating factor for their purchase. Two Instagram influencers were mentioned by Polish respondents as having recommended fake AirPods, one with 2 million followers, the other with 300.000.
What is their responsibility in this?
Social Media
Social media are well-known for their lax attitude to content and ads on their platforms. Political advertising based on outright lies, pictures of celebrities and ordinary people being used in ads without their approval, advertising directing users to scams, frauds and sites stealing personal and credit card data.....and sites blatantly selling counterfeit products. Among other things, we have seen advertisements and accounts on Instagram selling counterfeit luxury watches, for example. See pics. (By the way, when trying to follow the links to the seller's site, one didn't work and another was deemed as unsafe by the iPhone.)
What is their responsibility in this?
Online Marketplaces
To which extent do the big online marketplaces verify that goods sold on their sites. Is it at all possible to do on the millions and millions of different items offered via the Amazons, eBays, Temus and AliExpresses existing online? Do they at all try? Some of them are more notorious than others for selling fakes and counterfeits, but it seems as if no-one is free from it.
Compare it with a someone owning a building where you let space for small merchants to sell their goods. Aren't you supposed to take action if any of those merchants sell illegal products or cheat customers?
Is there any moral or legal difference if that space is online?
What is their responsibility in this?
Dropshipping
The practice of Dropshipping is especially troublesome in this context. When only the display and sale happens at the online marketplace but the goods is actually sent directly from the producer to the consumer, never passing any distribution facilities of the middleman, the online marketplace. How on earth are the online marketplaces supposed to be able to hold back the flood of counterfeits if they don't even pass their facilities?
Is it at all physically possible for online marketplaces to take action? Or is it up to customs authorities to inspect the tsunami of parcels? Hopefully with extra attention to packages sent through dropshipping. Maybe with some AI support to highlight high-risk packages?
We don't intend to dive into the legal responsibility here, we're not legal scholars, but what about morals? How do these accomplices in marketing and selling counterfeits sleep at night?
Image by FangXiaNuo on iStock
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