Russia, China named top pirates of U.S. goods

farss wrote on 4/6/2006, 7:01 AM

That figure sounds low to me, there's nothing on sale in China that's the genuine article. Even in the very flashy shops with American names and decor, the only thing genuine is the US based prices.
Of cause you can buy the same fakes down the road minus the decor and the prices.
Will anything be done, nope. The US cannot afford the social disruption that stopping it would cause, worse still imagine if China foreclosed on US debt?
There's the regular token raids, a bit of press and TV coverage with party officials tut tutting on camera while in the background trucks move the plant to a new factory.
Maybe one way to ease the pain is to think of the lost revenue as foreign aid.
Bob.

Spot|DSE wrote on 4/6/2006, 7:05 AM

Maybe one way to ease the pain is to think of the lost revenue as foreign aid.

you aren't the first to say it, and it makes a lot of sense, in a way.
I dunno how many have the "Recall Roundup" on their local news, but every night here, Chinese goods are recalled from major companies. One has to wonder with all the major companies having so many products manufactured in China, how many of those designs are ripped off and in someone else' shop before Walmart gets their hands on it.

PeterWright wrote on 4/6/2006, 7:12 AM

I must confess I have 7 or 8 Chinese electrical power tools - all good quality and all ridiculously cheap. E.G. A hedge trimmer for A$29, with a two year warranty.

I've no idea whether these involve pirating designs - should I feel guilty or just enjoy?

Bob Greaves wrote on 4/6/2006, 7:31 AM

I own a Studio Projects C1 microphone made in China. It is made by a plant that used to make very expensive German Neumann microphones. I cannot tell the difference between this C1 and a Neumann U 87. But my wallet can.

I find I do not know what to think of it. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I do not know.

craftech wrote on 4/6/2006, 7:41 AM

Wow, and we're the ones that has to foot the bill, financially speaking.
=============
Not quite. They are the ones footing the bill, financially speaking. The own the largest share of the national debt that we keep raising the ceiling on while we stupidly declare a sound economy.

John

Former user wrote on 4/6/2006, 8:28 AM

First off -- Let me just state that I'm a complete advocate of copyright protection and all associated rights that come along with those protections. I will always buy my software at whatever price a developer / distributor decides it is worth. If I think it costs too much, then I will find other software options (like do I buy AVID or Vegas - Photoshop or PaintShop PRO?).

But, that being said. I'm dubious of industry claims for their total losses from pirated software. Let's say a company claims that 100,000 illegal copies of their $1000 software has been distributed "offshore." The company figures that's a $100,000,000 in lost revenue. In my view, there are quite a few things wrong with that claim.

1. Most companies that just lost $100 million would be out of business / bankrupt / insolvent / etc... Would this company be out of business? Probably not.

2. Would each and every one of those people who acquired a pirated copy of this $1000 software have bought a full priced version if the pirated version had not been available? No. I would guess that maybe 1% might have.

3. There are many other points along these same lines that could be made...

I also like to equate this scenario to a library (at least as far as claiming lost revenue from non-purchased copies of a product being used.)

Let's say a library buys a book from a publisher for $20 and places it into their lending system. Over the course of 5 years, let's say 100 people check out the book and read it. The author / publisher only made a single $20 sale, but 100 people got the benefit of the copyright owners intellectual property. Does this mean that they had a "loss" of $2000 because they lost the sales of an additional 100 copies of their book? Would those same 100 people had gone to Book's-A-Million and forked over $20 for the same book had it not been available for free at the local library? Some, maybe, but not all.

Let's extend the example to 1000 libraries. Now the publisher has sold a 1000 of the books for a total of $20,000 -- not bad -- but 100,000 people have read those 1000 books. According the way software companies do their loss estimation, that's a $2,000,000 revenue loss. Now, I'm not a librarian, so there may be some sort of compensation that libraries pay publishers for each loan of a book, but I kinda doubt it...

johnmeyer wrote on 4/6/2006, 8:37 AM

while we stupidly declare a sound economy.

Yeah, the sight of all those unemployed workers reminds me of the depression. No food on the shelves. The stores are empty. The stock market is in the tank. All the economic indicators are down.

Floods. Fire. Famine. What a horrible place we live in.

I sure wish I lived in [ ... ]

craftech wrote on 4/6/2006, 8:49 AM

while we stupidly declare a sound economy.
----
Yeah, the sight of all those unemployed workers reminds me of the depression...
==========

I didn't know you were that old.

I guess it is a matter of one's definition of a sound economy.

If one considers a sound economy to be one that is based upon endlessly borrowing money and every time you can't make ends meet you just borrow more with absolutely no consideration for how the debts will be paid then we have a sound economy.

If one doesn't care that the next generation will have to figure out how to pay for it because that doesn't immediately concern those profiting from the massive loans right now then we have a sound economy.

If I go around flashing my new "toys" that I bought by maxing out six credit cards that I don't intend to pay for while my family inherits the debt after I die then I am a good economist.

John

johnmeyer wrote on 4/6/2006, 9:14 AM

John,

Good points. I agree that both the consumer and national debt are at very troubling levels, especially consumer debt.

riredale wrote on 4/6/2006, 9:25 AM

Guys, let's not get into another one of these flame wars.

That said, there are two points I wanted to make:

(1) I agree with an earlier post that it's not fair to say that since there are X thousand pirated copies out there, then the company has lost Y dollars. I doubt very many of those X thousand users would have paid for an official copy. While I don't condone the practice, the extra copies are in a sense an extension of the original legal penetration. A company might offer a product for $100, but then make a special price of $10 for students. Why? Because it especially wants to ensure penetration into the student market for various reasons. Adobe sells Photoshop for a premium price. There are many millions of bootlegged copies of Photoshop around the world. I believe that, to a very great extent, Photoshop is one of those universal formats precisely because of all the market penetration, legal and otherwise.

(2) Regarding the US economy, it is roaring along right now and with nearly full employment. A lot of borrowing is taking place, but to my knowledge the borrowing is in line with the overall size of the economy (percentage-wise).

When I went through an MBA program years ago, one of my econ professors taught that borrowing is not that big a deal for a country. Why? Because THEY PRINT THEIR OWN MONEY. In other words, it's different than if I borrowed to buy a new HD set and then had to pay it back. A government can increase the money supply by printing more money. If they do it to excess, the effect is that the value of their currency will decrease (simply because there's more of it in circulation) and it will take more of it to buy stuff. That's called inflation. For now, we don't have much inflation.

A few decades back I had a great vacation with my wife in Germany. We stayed at a nice B&B an hour or so outside Frankfurt. In the morning, we had breakfast in a room that had a fascinating wallpaper--it consisted entirely of German paper money dating back to about 1920 or so. After WWI the German economy was collapsing, and they printed so much currency that the paper bills became almost worthless--hence their use as wallpaper.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 4/6/2006, 9:49 AM

CBS news (with the guy who's a GOOD news anchor, forget his name but he's the older guy on right now, I really like him, don't like the replacement, will probley stopwatching, anyway..) last month ran a story about US goods being pirated in South America and that it's basicly legal down there. PArt of the story was that a) people do it because they make better money then something else & b) it wsa more of a concern for the US because terror groups were using that to make $$$.

It was even mentioned that there's wharehouses FULL of confisciated pirated stuff.

My solution was that the US go down there, BUY all the confisciated stuff & sell it at near nothing (even more nothing then what it was being sold for) and drive the other guys out of business. Technically, it's legal & no different then Microsoft offering Office to Students for $50 instead of $300 so they don't pirate it. Take the competition out & then leave. odds are it wouldn't be a big problem again because they know we'd just go down & under sell them again.

On the debt of people, let's face it. people are stupid. Me & my wife earn ~$25k a year combined & have two kids. The only debt we have is a few small loans & everything will be payed off in a few years. Difference between us & most others? We don't purpously put ourselves in debt. Sad part? We're going to suffer along with everyone else because they'll cause economic problems, not us. :)

johnmeyer wrote on 4/6/2006, 9:50 AM

riredale,

I think you learned your lessons well.

thirdnostril wrote on 4/6/2006, 10:12 AM

"Yeah, the sight of all those unemployed workers reminds me of the depression. No food on the shelves. The stores are empty. The stock market is in the tank. All the economic indicators are down."

Hate to bring you down to Earth, but unemployment IS high. And it's much higher when you consider the following:

1. Anyone who has run out of unemployment insurance is no longer counted as unemployed by the Bush "administration."

2. Seasonal farm jobs, which have never been counted in the employment totals before Bush the Younger, are now being counted. This inflates the employment figures at exactly the time of year (what a surprise) when the most farm workers are in the fields.

3. Our entire manufacturing base has been shipped to Mexico and China. We won WWII by rapidly converting our vast manufacturing facilities to wartime production. What happens if we're invaded now? Who's going to make bombs and bullets--burger flippers and hotel maids? Web programmers and consultants?

Now for the stores being empty. No, they're full, but they're full of goods made in China, and we can't do a thing about it, because not only do we no longer have any manufacturing to replace those products with, but as it's been pointed out, Communist China owns a sizable chunk of this country. Flippant Rove-isms won't make that go away.

And yeah, when you give rich people huge tax breaks during a war, you can finagle the stock indexes back up. But it's a hollow prosperity. Ask any economist whose check isn't signed by Rupert Murdoch or the GOP (Greasy Oil Purloiners).

"Floods. Fire. Famine. What a horrible place we live in."

Seen any pictures of New Orleans lately?
Have you seen what's happening on the Mexican border? Talk of amnesty has created a Rio Grande Free-for-All.
Half a dozen states are considering anti-gay legislation--what an embarassment in the 21st century.
Seen any returning veterans from the war that shouldn't have been?
One of our top Homeland Security people is a child molester.
Not to mention the fact that the last two presidential elections were successfully stolen.

"I sure wish I lived in [ ... ]"

Canada? Ireland? Australia? Norway? The Netherlands?

And that's just off the top of my head.

thirdnostril wrote on 4/6/2006, 10:15 AM

"Good points. I agree that both the consumer and national debt are at very troubling levels, especially consumer debt."

The number one reason for personal bankruptcy in the US is catastrophic medical bills. (It used to be catastrophic illness, but it doesn't take one of those anymore to land you in bankruptcy court.)

If we had national health like every other industrialized country on the planet, we could get rid of the biggest cause of choking consumer debt.

thirdnostril wrote on 4/6/2006, 10:18 AM

"When I went through an MBA program years ago, one of my econ professors taught that borrowing is not that big a deal for a country. Why? Because THEY PRINT THEIR OWN MONEY. In other words, it's different than if I borrowed to buy a new HD set and then had to pay it back. A government can increase the money supply by printing more money. If they do it to excess, the effect is that the value of their currency will decrease (simply because there's more of it in circulation) and it will take more of it to buy stuff. That's called inflation. For now, we don't have much inflation."

So borrowing is no problem--we'll just print more money. But printing more currency drives prices up, necessitating even more greenbacks, raising prices more...

Um, it sounds like borrowing is really a big problem for a country. Guess that's why Clinton went to the trouble to wipe out our debt.

thirdnostril wrote on 4/6/2006, 10:19 AM

"(2) Regarding the US economy, it is roaring along right now and with nearly full employment. A lot of borrowing is taking place, but to my knowledge the borrowing is in line with the overall size of the economy (percentage-wise)."

Not if you're responsible, and refuse to count McJobs.

thirdnostril wrote on 4/6/2006, 10:25 AM

"On the debt of people, let's face it. people are stupid. Me & my wife earn ~$25k a year combined & have two kids. The only debt we have is a few small loans & everything will be payed off in a few years. Difference between us & most others? We don't purpously put ourselves in debt. Sad part? We're going to suffer along with everyone else because they'll cause economic problems, not us. :)"

People ARE stupid, but that doesn't change the fact that credit card companies make offers they shouldn't make, and then charge ridiculous rates if you're day late with a payment. Then there's "universal default," where if you're late on ONE credit card, ALL your credit card companies get to jack up your interest. So I think the natural stupidity of people is being significantly augmented with corporate greed.

And no, you're not going to suffer because of the mistakes of others. You just said you don't have much debt, and it's not on credit cards. You're out of the loop.

And what if your mother is sick and all you have in the world is a credit card to show the hospital, because it's been made so easy for your employer not to offer insurance?

Let's keep the blame where it belongs, people: On Halliburton and Enron, not your friends and neighbors!

dat5150 wrote on 4/6/2006, 10:33 AM

In the long run, the Chinese and others who have invested in US debt will be big losers, why?......because the American people and their elected leaders have no intention of paying off the debt...it will be run up till the inevitable margain call..there will be tough years ahead when this all plays out.

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 4/6/2006, 10:37 AM

so move then

johnmeyer wrote on 4/6/2006, 10:59 AM

so move then

Amen.

mr.beebo wrote on 4/6/2006, 12:07 PM

I wonder what they complain about in Sri Lanka?

thirdnostril wrote on 4/6/2006, 12:44 PM

Nothing to say, huh?

I accept your concession.

thirdnostril wrote on 4/6/2006, 12:50 PM

"so move then

Amen."

Sean Hannity couldn't have put it better!

Maybe Lush Windbag could have.

dat5150 wrote on 4/6/2006, 1:07 PM

I don't know whose responding to who on this thread, but I'm way ahead of the guy who said to leave the country.....that is my plan and I hope to execute it in the next 10 years.