One small step

Today, LVMH (Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton) won a landmark victory against eBay for allowing the sale of counterfeit goods, according to Women’s Wear Daily.  A French court ordered eBay to pay LVMH around 40 million euros, or $63.2 million, for selling counterfeit items on its online auction site, and for selling genuine products outside their desired retail channel.

This is just one small step in defending rights of designers in the wild wild west of the underground world of counterfeiting, But will it help?
Counterfeiting robs the U.S. alone of more than $200 billion a year. It’s a cash only, tax-free business where legitimate citizens still get stuck paying taxes, while counterfeiters line their pockets at your expense. This is going on all over the world hurting everyone while a small percentage of people actually benefit from these fraudulent acts. 

While the LVMH case is a great victory, we need MANY more wins of this kind to make a dent. Stronger rules and regulations are needed at ports and boarders worldwide and that is just the beginning. When will people understand that buying fakes and knock-offs is not cool and is really apart of a much larger picture than just the local street corner?

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