Apple's Anti-Counterfeiting Efforts in Asia Hampered by Uncooperative Authorities

[woodys115]

Doing business in China

I am in the printing business, and even though not directly related to electronics. Doing business in countries like China, Russia and India...etc. Is a risky business. Especially if you set-up your own plants (which apple does not).

If you do not have your own people on the ground running things. Your business can unravel pretty quickly. I talk from some pretty heavy experience. Product being sold to 3rd partyies, in some cases right out the back door where a name brand product is being made for pennies on the dollar. Years ago, UGG boots found an order of 100,000 (100.00 retail) boots on there way to the US, which were illegally bought for 5 bucks a pair! and rumor has it that it was one of many that were never found....just missing.

Their economy and far outgrown the governments ability or want to to react about intellectual and product ownership rights. This unfortunately will continue and there is nothing that can be done about it. Until cost of living and product production matches on a worlds basis, it will status quo.

The solution, some would say to move mfg, but our apple products would cost so much they would not be bought. Bummer, really...

 

[Mousse]

Apple needs to realize that the Chinese government is not going to do anything to slow growth in China and could care less about a few counterfeit goods.

Indeed. It's akin to trying to stop the pirates in Port Royal. To stop the counterfeiters, Apple needs to pay the authorities more than the other guys. Throw enough money at them and the counterfeiting rings will dry up within a week. That's not gonna happen. So the best Apple can hope for is to keep the problem from spreading out of China.

 

[Simplicated]

Gadget piracy isn't a high priority for the Chinese government, the U.S. reports and experts say.

Bribery is of much higher priority in China.

 

[irun5k]

And raise prices? For everything? Not feasible.

I wonder if there is really no way to build this hardware in the U.S. and stay competitive. Certainly, creative thinking would be involved given the dramatic difference in labor costs.

Perhaps mechanization of the assembly line would allow Apple to use less employees but pay higher wages. The way they build iPhones today isn't the only way to build them- it is just what they inevitably came up with given the availability of very inexpensive labor.

I'd like to see someone get creative on this, and it might as well be Apple. With 9-10% unemployment, it would be great to start employing our own people with every dollar we spend on electronics.

 

[MH01]

So Apple wants the best of both worlds, Ultra cheap labour force to produce their good and total control of how these good are sold in China....Good luck with that.

They should be thankful these stores are selling Apple goods and not cheap knockoffs. Geez Apple is still making money, talk about greedy.

They can send in their Army of lawyers to sue...though they will probably just get shot.

 

[ucantgetridofme]

Here is a thought, why not bring the jobs to some of the right to work states here, that way you can keep the unions out and create some jobs here.

Because Apple would have to charge $1500 for an iphone to make the same amount of profit. Nobody is stopping Apple from building their junk in America but Apple. They can complain all they want but this is the price they pay for sweatshop labor. It's still more profitable than producing in the US so Apple should **** and stop whining.

 

[MH01]

what, you dont believe in intellectual property rights? let me guess, youre an Android user? steal what you can, all that?

what, you never heard of a place called China Intellectual Property Rights....ha ha ha ha ha....

 

[mdelvecchio]

Apple has recently "requested" that their Foxconn factory replace all of the line workers with robots.

please cite your claim that it was Apple that decided to automate. i didnt read that in the story i read:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/01/us-foxconn-robots-idUSTRE77016B20110801

I assume that they are doing this to stop the suicides,

you do realize the suicide rate w/i Foxconn is less than the national chinese and US averages, right?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...er-than-in-the-US-says-Apples-Steve-Jobs.html

 

[ucantgetridofme]

Bribery is of much higher priority in China.

Apple's too much of a control freak to play that game.

 

[mdelvecchio]

Apple is a nation or a corporation?

apple doesnt have to be a nation in order to be protected by international laws; it only needs to be inside a member nation such as the US. duhhh.

----------

what, you never heard of a place called China Intellectual Property Rights....ha ha ha ha ha....

that has zero to do w/ my post. my post was about a guy who snarkily complained that apple is suing those which violate its IP, as if that was something to be ashamed of. it isnt.

that comment doesnt mention china.

 

[Loonytik]

This is obviously an Apple centered site but, do those of you saying Apple should more stern with China in regards to their products realize that China could give a damn about Apple? I mean really....China doesn't even care what the U.S., Russian, and UK governments think. They damn sure don't care what Apple thinks.

Put the U.S.(or any country you like) and China into this comparison and marvel.

http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-comparison.asp

Now, if you're talking strong-arming factories to have tighter controls on Apple products slipping through the cracks I can hop on board. Apple strong-arming the Chinese government, simply not even worth discussion.

 

[nad8e]

apple doesnt have to be a nation in order to be protected by international laws; it only needs to be inside a member nation such as the US. duhhh.

Or have more money than the government!

 

[edwurtle]

Except these stores again do not sell counterfeit merchandise, these are genuine products, just not authorised resellers (nor authorised to use Apple's branding like they do for the stores).

src? Did you read this part: "China's government declined to investigate a facility in March 2009 that was manufacturing imitation Apple laptops because it threatened local jobs"

 

[carlgo]

Statements like this are blatantly untrue. In early 2000 we, the US, exported (source) more high tech products than we imported, and they were affordable. Sharp made TV's in the US, for export. These products were made here competitively, and can be done again, but attitudes like yours are the reason for stagnation.

Every time there is a "make it in the US" discussion, the anti-American worker trolls come out. I presume they get some sort of email from China alerting them to the threads to respond to. Do they get their orders from the Chinese equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce or from companies like Foxcon?

Of course many things are built here and competitively priced, like cars that have vastly more worker-hours in them than the few seconds of labor in an electronic device. And this is despite the competitive disadvantage of our health care system.

 

[brdeveloper]

I don't understand why people say "communist" China this and that as if it's bad.

Communist rule for decades.. and look where we are now #1 country. Better than USA. Yet USA has black president and still in trouble and in war.

Be happy, we making your iphones for you because you dont want to make yourself.

China is communist just like USA is neoliberal. Which is better? Neoliberals are less altruist than communist, however communist are less democratic than neoliberals.

Glossary
Altruist government: aims to reduce inequalities; neoliberalism is individual-oriented rather than communism which looks for the colective will (which, of course, denies a lot of individual freedom).

Neoliberals: aim to give freedom to speech and thought (theoretically); minimum government intervention on economy (except in the 2008's crisis); neoliberalism theoretically allows everyone to be the king of the world. In practice, it broadens inequalities.

P.S. I'm not nationalist nor communist nor neoliberal. I defend open borders and nationless (multiculturalist) altruist states.

 

[mattnotis]

I love China. They're more concerned with banning music and making sure their citizens don't say anything bad about their government than they are about some seriously illegal ****.

 

[bstpierre]

Yes it does. Thing is that no article ever said that everything they sell is real. The main products might be but the cables etc could be fake.

That said, to those saying there's nothing Apple can do. Sure there is. They can drop the 411 that they are moving to shift their factory activity out of China. Let the government find out that Apple is in talks with Foxconn to use the South American factories and only those factories and see how fast China realizes there are jobs to lose.

Won't make a difference. There are already factories in China that can make Apple products. If Apple pulls out of those factories they will still make the products, just Apple won't get their cut.

 

[jlc1978]

They may call in their debts if you don't do business with them.

Actually, in that regard we are hostages of each other. We need them to buy our debt; but they need a market and a place to park their cash. right now, US debt is one of the safest choices, even with a downgrade. They really can't call in their debts - those or not loans in the traditional sense. They'd have to sell them to someone else, and if they offload a lot the price will drop dramatically.

They have to hope that we keep paying the interest, and the Yuan doesn't appreciate to much - which means that actually need to keep buying to weaken their currency or risk become too expensive to do business in.

Finally, while I doubt this would happen, the US could revalue the dollar and wipe out all the foreign debt with the stroke of a pen - although that would precipitate a real finical crisis.

China will, just as the US did, start valuing IP when they become significant producers and their companies stand to loose more through piracy than they gain through making knockoffs. Then they will join the rest of the world in that regard.

Of course, I think China's real challenge is how to control growth and the inevitable move to more economic freedom while holding the country together; cause once it goes it won't be pretty.

 

[brdeveloper]

I love China. They're more concerned with banning music and making sure their citizens don't say anything bad about their government than they are about some seriously illegal ****.

Maybe (I don't live in China), most chinese people are ok with that. When most people are poor, growing their income around 10%/year is a good hope. Poorer american people hardly can expect their income growing at this rate.

 

[jeff33702]

China is all about employment. They don't care about counterfeit products, the environment, animal or human rights. If they can make a buck, they do it - period.

It's not about making the products affordable, it's about stealing, back-door manufacturing and making money. Companies hire Chinese manufacturers and the majority of the time, those same manufacturers continue to produce the products, in excess of the legitimate order, just to have those same products become competition for the company who designed them in the first place. Sad.

Anyone else think it's funny how not too many years ago, we avoided products "Made in China" but now some of our most coveted items are made there?

 

[Ping Guo]

A third-world country run by grifters and thieves, what response were they hoping for? China's entire economy is based on leeching technology from foreign JVs, then booting them as soon as they can ramp up their crappy domestic copies.

Case in point: The Kawasaki joint venture where they copied their trains and dissolved the partnership as soon as they thought they had it figured out (see Wenzhou train crash and subsequent recall).

Chinese also consider it their god-given right to rip off foreign IP because of perceived historical slights and humiliation. At least they're not very good at it, and deprived of local sources to copy, they'll quickly succumb to the "Lada Syndrome", making outdated fakes that a Chinese pig farmer would be embarrassed to be seen with.

Gutless bean-counters and the farce that is globalization have gotten us to this point. It's time to look ahead. Let's move some jobs to Malaysia, or Taiwan, heck back to the U.S.A., using more robotic assembly. Apple has billions sitting in the bank right?

At least China will still have the "Blockberry" smartphone.

 

[chairguru22]

Here is a thought, why not bring the jobs to some of the right to work states here, that way you can keep the unions out and create some jobs here.

$$$. That's why.

 

[brdeveloper]

They don't care about counterfeit products, the environment, animal or human rights. If they can make a buck, they do it - period

Looks like a description of USA, however in the exterior policy and with the exception of counterfeit stuff. USA contributed to the failure of Kyoto agreement saying it couldn't comply with the audacious terms. In terms of human rights, I can mention Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Condor Operation in south america which produced a lot of dictator governments in the cold war... the list is big. And yes, if Apple and USA can make a buck, they do, period. Ecology? What about gulf of Mexico and Three Mile Island? What about Hiroshima? Stop talking about environment.

It's not about making the products affordable, it's about stealing, back-door manufacturing and making money. Companies hire Chinese manufacturers and the majority of the time, those same manufacturers continue to produce the products, in excess of the legitimate order, just to have those same products become competition for the company who designed them in the first place. Sad.

Stealing? Well, rain forest is a big provider of high grade wood used in luxury furniture and musical instruments . These ones are not bought by brazilian people I assure you. Also there is a lot of biological-material piracy here supported by pharmacologic industry. "Stealing", "back-door manufacturing" is all about point-of-view. USA is the big supporter of the free-market. "Third world" has always claimed this policy as unfair since their natural products were too much undervalued by industrialized countries. Now we see a game-change and in my opinion this can lead to a better world decreasing inequalities.

USA will be pushing technology for a long time. That's their vocation. However, profits will be tighter, but they'll be a mainstream player in this system. However, we'll have a world a bit less neoliberal and more altruist (sustainable).

 

[ellsworth]

Here's an idea APPLE. How about cutting off China from receiving your products all together?

If the local govt isn't assisting you with Anti-Counterfeiting Efforts, why bother helping their economy grow? Simple solution.

 

[sigma8]

Seems to be about the stores to me. There's 2 issues, but let's not get them mixed up. The article isn't clear that the "counterfeit" stores are selling genuine products.

Read the CNN article the story is talking about and linked to in the first sentence. Yes, there are two issues: products and stores. I'd leave it at that. The fact that the fake stores sell legitimate products is irrelevant, because:
a) we haven't confirmed that they only sell legitimate product, and Apple cannot control its brand in these stores
b) even if they did, there are still many places to get illegitimate product in China--Apple's brand is being abused on all fronts