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Angry Chinese Blogger:
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A Rolex is still only a watch.
Fakes, counterfeits and imitations are all part of life in China, on arriving here you quickly come to accept that anything with a non Chinese brand logo brought outside of an authorised chain is probably going to be a counterfeit, you accept this and move on. It is no use launching a private crusade against Piracy because the idea of counterfeiting is so ingrained in to the collective subconscious of China that nobody will listen to it.
I suppose the main justification for counterfeiting is that without the pirates only a few people would be able to afford the trappings that they associate with life in a developed nation. Very few people could afford to pay for brand name fashions if they had to pay the same as somebody in Manhattan, and who here could afford to pay the Tokyo price for a television or the newest DVDs. Piracy is the only way that the majority of Chinese people could ever afford to live the life that they do. Even Chinese products and films are more likely to be counterfeit than they are real.
Sometimes the items are overproduction from the very same factories that produce the real product, made “on the side” to sell in the markets and stores of China’s cities, other times they are simply Chinese clothes with crude labels sown on to them. The price and the quality can vary dramatically, from a perfect forgery made in a Shenzhen industrial estate (fakes made through overproduction are often identical to genuine items because they come from the same factories and are produced with the same machinery), to a poor imitation sown in the backroom of a local clothes store. You buy what you can afford and leave everything else.
The rationalisation of accepting piracy has lead to a deep culture of mistrust, you know that the seller is not widely dishonest but that you are buying a fake. There is more concern and distrust of stores here than in any developed country, it is now a part of the culture and is serving to hold back the emergence of a truly and open free market economy.
People are so used to merchants trying to sell low quality goods as high quality merchandise that when something genuine comes along it is often lost amongst the crowd of counterfeits. People aren’t willing to pay the extra for the genuine article because they don’t believe that they are genuine, or believe that the quality is any better than that of the counterfeits. This perpetuates the cycle of piracy by making genuine CDs, clothes and other goods hard to sell and hard to make a profit from. People would rather by cheap pirates knowing that they will get what they pay for in quality, rather than buying something that is more expensive, and in their eyes is probably a fake, but at a higher price.
The attitude that genuine goods do not sell well enough to make a decent profit has permeated every level of Chinese society and has saturated all but the most affluent regions of China. The size of the shop and the price of the goods is no guarantee either. While we expect the market traders in our own countries to sell counterfeit Levis jeans for 1000 Yen (OK, it has been a while since I went to my local market) a pair, we don’t expect the department stores in the mall to sell anything but the genuine product. We know that the man who sells 50 pairs of brand new Reebok trainers at a yard sale is probably peddling reproduction trainers, but we don’t expect this treatment from Empire or any of the major catalogue stores. In China even the Chain stores sell pirate goods, and being a glossy department store is no guarantee of the quality of the merchandise.
Each of us has to make our own decision about how honest we are. Some people say that as long as it does what it says on the package, then cheap is cheap. Others say that a record company makes tens of millions of Yen every day by overcharging fans for a CD that costs only a handful of Yen to produce (a factory can produce a DVD for less than 20 Yen, or about 18 Cent but they retail for more than eighty times the price) so why not steal your money back from them. You could even say that nobody can own an idea, so your paying a fair amount for the materials that the idea is printed on. Its’ your choice.
I know that I haven’t brought a single DVD locally, and that I only buy my films and music from internationally recognised outlets and traders, I can pay double and often more for films that are after all the template on which the counterfeits were made. This is my choice. I wouldn’t buy a quality reproduction Rolex for 1000 Yen when I can buy a genuine stores own brand for 2000 Yen, it tells the same time, has the same numbers on it. The manufacturer may have hiked the price to get as much out of the customer as possible, buy they are a different type of crook from the counterfeiter.
While the counterfeit industry in Europe and America is often the front end of a sweat shop in Asia or Africa, in China it is often a cottage industry. The counterfeit clothes in the local market are often sown by the people who run the stands and those that items that aren’t, are often genuine factory made clothes, but with the addition of the ubiquitous logo. The capital from a Chinese Pirate CD often goes to a businessman who honestly believes that he is giving the public something that they desire, and not to somebody who intends to use the money to finance a drugs deal.
The truth, that no matter how illegal counterfeiting is no mater how stringently you avoid it (or gleefully purchase it), and no matter how much we berate China for doing it, counterfeiting is now a major force in the Cinese economy.
Without counterfeit DVDs there would only be a handful of shops selling them to the handful of people who could afford them. Without fake trousers and t-shirts the vital youth market would probably be a far smaller, with teenager no longer being able to afford the US fashions, seen as an essential status symbol by so many people.
The entrepreneurial spirit that is now growing within China is being fed by people who have money to spend and want an American lifestyle, but at a local price, making piracy a truly vast industry.
Without piracy China would not have the booming economy that it has.
I don't know if you are in Hong Kong, but today's SCMP ran an interesting
story by Jake van der Kamp that ties in with your comments here.
The money quotes are:
"Let us cut through to the core of the illusion business. French fashion goods makers expect us to pay with our tax money for police protection of profits made from overcharging us for their wares.
This was in effect the long and short of the message from an alliance of 65 French luxury brands, the Comite Colbert, at a meeting last week with our government's intellectual property department and, from what I can tell, the people on our side grovelled as usual and said: Yes, you're right, that's fair, that's exactly what we should do.
It is what they have always said and I see no reason to think that they have stopped standing on their heads and begun to realise exactly what this game is about. It is about money, about the presumed right of foreign copyright holders to take as much of it from us as they would like and about their presumption that we ought to pay the costs of permitting them to do it. ...
They want us to use our hard-earned tax money, not the tax money of their own nationals or, perish the thought, their own revenues, to hire more policemen to enforce draconian laws that are largely copied from abroad and written to enhance their profits at our expense.
Well, fellas, if you want a real remedy to the way that copyright pirates have stuck the pin of reality into the bubble of your carefully crafted illusions, then try dropping your prices to compete with them and stop pretending that your purpose is to improve our moral well-being rather than your earnings.
I see theft in copyright as well as in the breach of copyright with the way you people have convinced lawmakers around the world to cater to your interests alone."
Jake can be contacted - as stated at the end of every one of his articles - at jake.vanderkamp@scmp.com
Comment added from Livinginchina.com
I don't know if you are in Hong Kong, but today's SCMP ran an interesting
story by Jake van der Kamp that ties in with your comments here.
The money quotes are:
"Let us cut through to the core of the illusion business. French fashion goods makers expect us to pay with our tax money for police protection of profits made from overcharging us for their wares.
This was in effect the long and short of the message from an alliance of 65 French luxury brands, the Comite Colbert, at a meeting last week with our government's intellectual property department and, from what I can tell, the people on our side grovelled as usual and said: Yes, you're right, that's fair, that's exactly what we should do.
It is what they have always said and I see no reason to think that they have stopped standing on their heads and begun to realise exactly what this game is about. It is about money, about the presumed right of foreign copyright holders to take as much of it from us as they would like and about their presumption that we ought to pay the costs of permitting them to do it. ...
They want us to use our hard-earned tax money, not the tax money of their own nationals or, perish the thought, their own revenues, to hire more policemen to enforce draconian laws that are largely copied from abroad and written to enhance their profits at our expense.
Well, fellas, if you want a real remedy to the way that copyright pirates have stuck the pin of reality into the bubble of your carefully crafted illusions, then try dropping your prices to compete with them and stop pretending that your purpose is to improve our moral well-being rather than your earnings.
I see theft in copyright as well as in the breach of copyright with the way you people have convinced lawmakers around the world to cater to your interests alone."
Jake can be contacted - as stated at the end of every one of his articles - at jake.vanderkamp@scmp.com
Comment added from Livinginchina.com
The whole argument embeds a philosophically based dichotomy between the
concepts "authentic" and "fake". What's real, and why? I found this shop
selling Nike and Adidas gear for 100 - 200 RMB the other week. I guess the
stuff is probably an example of the overproduction stock you wrote about,
because I swear I cannot tell the difference. Actually I thought it was an
Australian type factory outlet shop selling remainders at highly discounted
prices, until someone informed me I was buying counterfeit. I compared my
jacket with the one shown on Nike's website and I did not believe him until
I read this article as the quality and the design of the "fake" jacket I'm
wearing is indistinguishable from the "real" thing.
But anyway, where is
the value of a real Nike jacket that sells for 700 RMB in a "real" Nike
shop derived from? Certainly not from the use-value (to use a Marxian term)
plus cost of production. In fact, 90% of the value of a "real" Nike jacket
seems to reside in its symbolic exchange value (to use a Baudrillairdian
term), which is wholly situated in the little tick logo on Nike gear. That
is, the value of a Nike jacket comes from its function as a status symbol,
as an image, a an ibject which has got to be analyzed formally. In other
words, there is nothing "real" about the value of a "real" Nike jacket.
This is why it's so vitally important for a company like Nike to fight
counterfeits, through legislation mainly, and is also why it needs to keep
the cost of its gear high (these being the only ways you can tell a jacket
is authentic) Without the legislative distinction and the exchange value
(both symbolic functions themeselves) nothing you could call authentic
would remain of a Nike jacket. Ultimately, the value of a Nike jacket only
comes from the dubious psychological satisfaction of being able to say to
yourself "I'm rich and privileged enough to afford this, that makes me
special."
Comment added from Livinginchina.com
I'm sorry, but these excuses for theft are completely false, and only exist
to make you feel better about your unethical and self-defeating actions.
Why do you think "Made in China" around the world is synonymous with "cheap
imitation"?
Piracy helps the economy?!?! Why should anyone bother producing anything original when they know that their hard work will not be compensated? How many Chinese entrepreneurs decided not to do anything because it wasn't worth it? Piracy is holding back the Chinese economy more than anything else!
And Stephen and Jake's argument that somehow they are being "overcharged" is ridiculous. Companies charge what the market can bear. They wouldn't be in business otherwise. The ONLY entity that can overcharge is a monopoly, and the French do NOT have a monopoly on fashion. Get real. As if somehow your life is meaningless without French fashion? Are there really no quality Chinese designers?
Actually, that is a possibility. Why would anyone in China become a fashion designer when they know that cannot make a living doing that, since the only ones making money off of their designs are the counterfeiters?
I am the last person to defend the record companies, but the musicians are on track to remove that obstacle themselves. The argument that the CD or DVD itself only costs pennies to make, so that's all you should pay, is crap. What you are implying is that it didn't cost anything to produce the movie or music. Sure, musicians signed under big labels are probably way underpaid. But do you really think that an independent label will be treated any differently by the counterfeiters? Just imagine how vibrant the Chinese music industry would be if there were 90% less copies of a musician’s music out, but the remaining 10% was almost all purchased legally? How much money would even a small hit make? How many more young musicians would be willing to take a chance?
Drop their prices to compete with the counterfeiters?!?! Again, this is just pretending that it doesn't cost anything to create. How can someone who has to pay many people, sometimes for years, to develop an idea compete with someone who just needs a computer and some blank disks? Sorry, but this is the argument of someone who hasn't bothered to think through what they are saying. However, since it is coming from someone who thinks that creativity is valueless, I guess expecting them to think would be a bit presumptuous.
This attitude breeds un-creativity and mediocrity. Why would anyone in China ever start their own business as a writer, musician, fashion designer, movie director, software developer, inventor, artist, or anything, knowing that they cannot survive doing so because others are stealing their works? Until Chinese can learn to value creativity, instead of thinking of it as valueless and free, China will be nothing but a country of cheep imitations.
Buddha
On a personal level, I don’t think that piracy is OK, and I don’t think
that it is a crime without a victim, but I do think that companies are that
they to keep their brand names exclusive by keeping prices high are making
an obscene amount of profit for nothing and that they are chocking
consumers.
High prices fuel piracy, they create an air of “the company is cheating me, so I might as well cheat them back” and they move the company from victim to co-conspirator in many people’s eyes.
In this article, I’m merely trying to introduce people to the mindset of people who consume pirate goods, and the excuses that are made, including “I’m poor, but I deserve everything that rich people have” and “The companies are cheating their customers anyway”.
Yes, piracy does stifle innovation and it takes
valuable money away from R and D, but in China, the innovation isn’t
happening anyway. Some people are innovating, but the
Chinese social
and education system isn’t geared up to allow innovation or even to
encourage it. Chinese who are innovating are largely doing it in the
US.
China already has a reputation for producing cheap imitations, and it is well earned. But this goes much further than pirate goods, a huge slice of China is nothing but a cheap imitation. Much of the glitter and gloss that you do see is a facade built over a shell.
Um, have you seen the fashions in China? Those are ANYTHING but American
styles. Not that I think "American" style is anything at all to think of
as stylish, but the two should not be confused. Chinese fashions on today's
young adults look very... well, Chinese.
Also, I might add that the huge amount of piracy really does fcuk up the creativity in China. Whereas in the States, the UK and Japan you can develop a product and be 98% positive that your innovation is fully protected under your patent, in China this is not the case. I don't really care about stuff like DVD piracy, but the culture of piracy really prevents innovation like medical research/Pharmaceutical and probably high tech research/product development from really taking off.
There is an article from Nature that makes reference to the current situation of China's Biotech industry, something that I think holds great promise, but that is hampered by patents still not totally enforced. The culture of piracy is going to have to calm down if China is going to start being a lot more than the World's sweatshop. I think enforcement is the key. Not that I have any bright ideas of how to make it work.
Laowai 19790204
"Fakes, counterfeits and imitations are all part of life in China, on
arriving here you quickly come to accept that anything with a non Chinese
brand logo brought outside of an authorised chain is probably going to be a
counterfeit, you accept this and move on. It is no use launching a private
crusade against Piracy because the idea of counterfeiting is so ingrained
in to the collective subconscious of China that nobody will listen to it."
rick: