Are counterfeit products always, or even usually, sub-par? (Serious question, I dunno.)
I’d say so. A friend of mine picked up an $8.00 “Rolex” when he was in Korea as a gag. It felt much lighter and was generally flimsier than a real one.
I’ve seen some fake purses and for the most part, the leather quality isn’t going to be as good as a real designer purse.
No, not necessarily, but it makes a good pun when applied to golf clubs.
I agree with Simplico. China doesn’t export a lot of intellectual property so it has little incentive to protect intellectual property. It makes more money by counterfeiting intellectual property produced in other countries.
He gives a good historical example of how the United States used to counterfeit intellectual property unitl it became a major source of original intellectual property. At that point, the United States developed a reason to protect intellectual property and began opposing counterfeiting.
Much like the way the U.S. was protectionist until fully industrialized and then started championing free trade.
They’re always below the quality of the item they’re copying. But as far as, say, $8 watches go, a fake Omega will be just as good as any other $8 watch.
We’ve seen people teaching in China talk about how hard it is to teach that plagiarism is wrong. This is cultural. The idea that ideas are something to be kept to one’s self is not the only moral system in existence.
Whether monetary pressure will change this in the future, I don’t know. But it definitely is ignorant to argue that valuing intellectual property is the only correct system, and that anyone who uses any other system is just greedy.
Couldn’t they be identical? (Thinking of post #18.)
But … wouldn’t that still be the name brand? 
Sounds like maybe the workers could get arrested for making extra units and selling those on the sly, but that still sounds like they’re making the genuine article.
The pirates here are all outsiders copying the genuine article using inferior materials or workmanship. You hear jokes about “Onega” watches and the like, but those aren’t copies strictly speaking. Our local pirates proudly label them the correct name – Omega, Cartier – with no spelling obfuscations whatsoever.
We do have original-equipment manufacturers (OEMs), local factories that are licensed by Western corporations to produce their products locally. They will also sometimes – legally, with the Western corporations’ permission – manufacture the same units and put their own brand on it for sale locallyat a cheaper price. But they’re not being passed off as the Western brand. Sony does that here, I know. It’s not unusual to see something like that in the West. Back in Texas, we had a name-brand milk and a secondary brand that sold at a lower price; a milkman I knew swore to me that it was the same milk.
[shrug] Kinda philosophical. Does it matter?
When Han van Meegeren was exposed as an art forger, the price of many of his paintings (purportedly done by old masters) went up.
Yes, well, the pirates here are of the inferior-materials/workmanship school.
Here’s a recent NPR article that touches on China’s issues with IP.
Sounds like the OP was counterfeit as well. They’re getting crafty those Chinese.
I think it is a mix of things. Culture does play a role. China has never put a lot of value on originality. From the old imperial exams (which consisted largely of quoting classic book at length) to traditional art (which is largely about copying masters) to the widespread plaguerism that almost defines Chinese academia, there has just never been much of a notion that people have a moral obligation to come up with their own material. It is a very different way of thinking about IP.
Added to that is a poor country with the technical and logistical capacity to create and distribute pirate goods, little ability or motivation to police it (indeed ripping off the West has some appeal for many people), a local consumer base that has never paid for media and isn’t about to start now, and a business culture with little sympathy for those that cannot monetize their work or those who do not take what advantages they can.
IP, of course, is not the only place where China’s business prctices, for whatever reason, are harmfu. We are talking about the land of poisoned baby food and cooking oil skimmed from public sewers and clarified with carcinogens. China either needs to develop the extenal controls or internal discipline to stop its businesses from hurting people, something I think will take a long time due to a culture that avoids personal responsibility and makes it easy for people to close their eyes to what is happening in front of them (both things that are useful to an autocratic regime.)
I found that very funny. (quoting from the link)
Until it affects him. Then his position changes. Apparently, other peoples information wants to be free, but not his.
Let’s start the discussion with what even sven said…
both those are still instances of counterfeiting. Making a product that looks like the real thing, cheaper for profit. And it’s easy to say those are harmful to people. I guess we still don’t have to say that calling that wrong is “the only correct system.” I’m sure most of us would, though. What is it that strikes us as wrong about that? And does that have any bearing on other forms of counterfeiting/copying?
From there, why don’t we discuss the counterfeiting of consumer goods? Is anyone hurt by it? Well, you can argue that is often the case. shoddy merchandise breaks or quits working before the real article should and the consumer is robbed of the value of use of that item, as well as the original manufacturer being out revenue, and the loss of reputation when “their” goods aren’t up to their standards.
Now we might as well move on to intellectual property. Is anyone harmed when it is copied? Or alternately, do we want to encourage a world where people find it difficult to profit from their own effort, where other people take your effort and profit from it instead? (two sides of the same coin in my opinion. i.e. is there any harm when other people profit from your effort, and you aren’t?) And who would be harmed? is it just the producer, or does society as a whole suffer? I would argue that society as a whole suffers, (as Spider Robinson also alluded to in the article,) when producers can not gain value from what they produce, (be it milk, or watches, or a novel,) they will have to stop producing it. And I think we are all the poorer for it. But, I guess you still don’t have to think it’s “the only correct system.” If you want a system where people who produce no value of their own profit from other people’s effort, and make all of society worse off for it, you don’t have to think that intellectual property is “the only correct system.” However, I will still call it theft… and evil… whatever you call it.
The irony is hilarious. Robinson apparently doesn’t see that the proper response would have been to re-examine his own half-baked morality.
I don’t think very many people would object to a system where creators reap the rewards for their creations. The problem with our current system is that it’s the distributors, not the creators, who collect most of the rewards.
Society doesn’t gain anything from the actions of these distributors - they don’t create anything new. But they insist on a distribution system that often leaves the actual creator with only a tenth of the money derived from his creation.
In my opinion, a just system would be one that directs more money to the creators, costs less money to the consumer, and keeps distribution costs to their actual expenses rather than some artificially high level. Such a system is possible with existing technology.
Huh, the OP got banned.
Could he have been… a counterfeit Doper?!
I now know that you’ve put me on ignore 
.
Nah, I don’t have anyone on ignore. I did a search for “ban” and didn’t see anyone else commenting on it, so I thought I was first. No biggie.