Staff Book and Media Recommendations

Patrick Douglas is a Library Technician at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Name Brand Counterfeiting: global economic crisis

The sale of cheap copies of name brand goods not only cuts deeply into the profits of legitimate businesses, but it also tarnishes their reputations for quality. Profit margin aside, certain products, when counterfeited, are a matter of public safety. While just about anything can be counterfeited, goods such as medical instruments, medicines, tea leaves, food and drink, toothpaste, perfumes, condoms, automobile parts, or baby toys can be especially dangerous.

Seizures of name brand counterfeits have increased by 900% worldwide over the last three years (1999-2002), costing European companies over 300 million Euros and 200,000 jobs. Some governments do more than others to stop the flow of these illegal products, but very often the legal process can be expensive and slow.

In Name Brand Counterfeiting, investigators for the Cartier and Bic corporations go to marketplaces where their brandings are being used, gain the trust of the sales people, and follow the trail of fraudulent goods from New York and Nigeria to Vietnam, Hong Kong, and ultimately to mainland China, where they are manufactured in full view of the public and the Chinese government. The investigators and the presenter explain the severity, dangers, and impact of the problem to the audience as they go. This is a very informative and eye-opening expose of a global economic issue.

Reviewed October 2011