How is fixing the distribution channel that counterfeit product sellers aren't using going to solve the counterfeit problem?
I think the inference is that a “black market” channel exists, it is profitable to participants, and the threat of prosecution isn’t high enough to discourage participation (buyers AND sellers). It’s been a global problem for decades - China has cheap labor, manufacturing prowess, and flexible morals when it comes to copying & counterfeiting.
Customs may intercept one package, but 20 more slip by undetected. Where do you focus your efforts? Create social awareness to try to get labor rates increased in China? Put tariffs on Chinese imports? Prosecute the recipients and broadcast to the country that you will be put in jail for breaking the law? Educate consumers on the source of their products and make them feel morally responsible for buying genuine goods?
The risk is not to consumers who knowingly buy knock-offs (and get favorable pricing), but rather to consumers who believe they are buying a genuine article. Now you have a moral/legal issue where buyers are knowingly deceived and genuine manufacturers are deprived of economic profit.
The amount of criminal activity in the world can make your head spin (even more so when countries and people disagree on what is considered “criminal”). At least in the US, we generally follow the pattern: establish right/wrong, codify as a law, enforce law, punish behavior. It’s not always that simple, but strife happens because there is a failure at one of those points: disagreement on right/wrong, laws are non-existent or written poorly, failure to enforce law, punishment is insufficient or excessive. In the case of counterfeit goods, I think the U.S. doesn’t have enough resources to cover the problem. End-users are not punished for purchasing counterfeit goods so there is an endless demand for these products (contrast that with purchasing
stolen goods, where the end-user will forfeit the goods with possible prosecution).
The battle will never end, but it is no doubt a battle that must be fought. Trade, patent and copyright law is not
perfect, but it has enabled an exceptional amount of innovation in a very short period of time. Companies and individuals invest time, money, and creativity into goods and services with the hope of reaping a profit. When that incentive is not properly protected (or when your risks and rewards are paid to someone other than yourself), that is when innovation will slow to a crawl.
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