INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Last night I was having a quiet glass of something cold and refreshing in Bar George with a friend, idly passing the time in light conversation and generally minding our own business, when an american lady came up to us and asked us to fill in a questionnaire about intellectual property rights for her thesis. She is investigating the different views held by westerners and asians on the thorny issue of fakes and copies, and was asking westerners to fill in these questionnaires, while a local colleague was asking asians to fill in the same (she reasoned - probably rightly - that a westerner asking about fakes etc might be seen by locals as being a bit of a police set-up so they would clam up).

Anyway we filled them in for her and then had a bit of a chat with her about it. She seemed pretty firmly of the opinion that it was a great evil, was killing off hollywood (and we're supposed to be bothered because..?), the american music industry (and we're supposed to be bothered because..?), microsoft (now that might bother me - there's is the only stuff I can work) and seriously impacting on the sales and profits of major brand such as Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren etc etc...

I must say I disagree entirely with this. The people who buy fakes are, in general, buying them because they either can't afford the real thing, or can afford it but resent the vastly inflated prices charged by top brands for what are, after all, just clothes, bags or watches, and so wouldn't buy them anyway.

In fact, while most of these brands make a big song and dance about stopping the fakes, I think they secretly are quite happy about it. The fact that their products are being faked means that they are in demand, and the people who are buying the fakes now because they can't afford it, might well turn into the guys who replace the fake with the real thing in a few years time when they can. It keeps the name in the limelight, and visible, and makes it an aspirational item.

Basically my view is that as long as no-one is actually physically harmed by an unsafe fake product (and yes I am aware of the whole "fake milk" story that is going in China at the moment, but that is not the sort of fake I am talking about), and a token effort is made to keep the fake business underground, then I have no problem with it.

Then I got home and found my wife had been to the Ladies Market on the Dark Side yesterday and I now had a nice shiny new Rolex Yachtmaster, just don't get it wet! Lovely.