Re: 9/10 for the Register's final IPRED round-up

On Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 05:43:36PM +0000, James Heald wrote:
    [...]
> >kind of counterfeiting, right through to whiskies and textiles. Fake goods 
> >aren?t just a rip-off, they can be dangerous too.

people keep claiming this, and it obviously isn't true.
Fake goods sell because they're good value; if they were a
rip-off, people wouldn't buy them.

For the consumer, they're probably a good thing, at least
in the short term; in the longer term, it's *possible*
that counterfeiting will decrease investment in the
production of goods and cause prices to rise. But that's
not obvious -- in particular, the manufacturers of the
fake goods will themselves benefit, perhaps by more than
the manufacturers of the original goods lose out.

Let's not mistake the Enforcement Directive for a measure
intended to protect consumers. It's there to help existing
manufacturers of `branded' goods.

-- 
``A cynic is a man who, upon smelling flowers,
  looks around for a coffin.'' (Mencken)