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April 06, 2005
what's the harm in buying a knock-off?
From the Advice Goddess Blog comes a great link entitled “What's Wrong With Knocking Off Somebody Else's Design?” The post quotes an article by Glen Beres who interviewed handbag designer Kathrine Baumann on the topic for Idex Magazine.
It is quite poignant and clearly shows the harm incurred by “harmless knock offs” — any response from those of you who buy Gucci and Prada knockoffs?
“Any time someone buys something that’s not authentic, they are damaging the original creator’s business and future,” Baumann said. “The financial toll on companies and their employees can be devastating. When you invest thousands of dollars into researching and developing a piece, and counterfeiters come along with low-cost imitations a few weeks later, you never recoup your original investment. It literally takes food off the table for your employees and compromises the security of their families. Some legitimate designers have been forced to lay off employees or file for bankruptcy because they’ve been victims of counterfeiting.”“At first I felt devastated; I had never encountered anything like this in my life,” she recalled. “But then I got angry and decided to fight back.”
Designers and manufacturers need to be even more aggressive and vigilant in protecting their original designs than in the past, Baumann learned, because infringers have become more brazen and more technologically proficient in knocking them off. For instance, counterfeiters can snap a photo of a product at a trade show, upload and transmit the image to their overseas factory, and have it appear in a catalog before the original even makes it into stores. The Internet is another vehicle that has helped counterfeiters because it’s fast, cheap and easy to use. Baumann noted that counterfeiters can log onto a designer’s site, download images of the designer’s product, e-mail those images directly to their own factory, and have the design copied and on the street in a matter of weeks.
Posted by Douglas Sorocco at 06:02 PM.
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Thanks very much for linking to this. This post was actually inspired by a blog item I wrote (and the ensuing firestorm) after a woman sent me a press release crowing about knocking off dresses. She's since taken down many of the photos on her site (after I contacted a designer or two to tell them photos from their current collections, from their Web sites, were being used on her site to sell cheap knockoffs of those exact dresses).
The initial post about that is
here.
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2005/03/sew_not_her_des.html
There's more about it here:
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2005/03/if_youre_going_1.html
And the woman even put up a site criticizing me! -- sew-beautiful.us/concreep -- but, took down the copyrighted masthead photographs of me from my syndicated newspaper column (and other photographs) that she copied off my site and used without payment or permission after I sent her my lawyer's comment that it was "a slam-dunk copyright violation." (She's still accusing me of libel -- she doesn't quite get that you can't libel somebody with your opinion.) I'd be interested to see what comments you get on this, if any, since your blog is probably read by experts in the field. I hope you don't mind me posting these links -- thought you might be interested.
Posted by: Amy Alkon, syndicated columnist at April 8, 2005 06:06 AM
Recently found one of my designs knocked off in a wholesalers' catalog. It's a really blatant rip of a development I've been running for 3 years, it's even done in my signature colorways. Difficulty of course is in what to do. the guy is an importer, the company making the pieces is in India...what's a girl to do. Hard to enforce copyright in this situation plus probably not economically feasible....
any suggestions??
Posted by: Betty at April 8, 2005 06:22 PM
Well, Betty, if it were me, I'd contact the catalog and perhaps some of the places that buys from them. And find others like Baumann who are fighting against this and join forces with them. Apparently, it's legal to knock somebody's product off -- but it certainly isn't moral. Maybe by pressuring the catalog -- appealing to them directly -- there's some small chance of getting them to replace it with the real thing...or, at the very least, let them know they're being slimey for giving a home to somebody who is, essentially, stealing from you. In France, there's the Union Des Fabricants -- unifab.com -- if this wholesaler is selling there, they could be in some serious trouble, if ever they go there. Long shot, I know. But I think it's very important for designers to start a movement that tells the public that it's wrong to buy and sell knockoffs, and certainly, counterfeits.
Posted by: Amy Alkon at April 9, 2005 10:02 AM
