A New Framework For Combating Piracy And Counterfeiting
Jörg Drischel
Master's Thesis from the year 2004 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 72%, University of the West of England, Bristol (Bristol Business School - MSc International Management), language: English, abstract: This study deals with the growing problem of piracy and counterfeiting successfulcompanies have to face nowadays. The aim of the study is to recommend suitablestrategies that victim companies should adopt in reaction to Intellectual PropertyRights (IPR) infringement and trademark counterfeiting. In order to formulateappropriate strategies, one must first gain an understanding of the rationale behindcounterfeiting for both producers as well as purchasers. It is also imperative todistinguish between different types of counterfeiting as some types certainly have agreater potential for harm. Each category requires a different approach. A look intobuyer behaviour is necessary in order for firms to be able to formulate a successfulanti-counterfeiting advertising campaign and to target the right audience as well as aninvestigation into the varying vulnerability to counterfeiting of different productcategories. Companies as well as society as a whole are plagued by a phenomenon that is clearlynot yet receiving the attention it deserves. Theft is a problem for every employer. Itoccurs in shops where would-be customers shoplift but it does not stop there.Employees stealing company property is a much bigger problem. This does notmerely refer to a company’s own workforce but also everyone at any stage of thesupply chain. The trend toward outsourcing certainly has not helped as it is difficultenough to keep an eye on your own workforce without having the additional problemof policing the supply chain. Products can and do go missing due to theft. Thephenomenon this study investigates is not conventional theft but rather theft of adifferent sort: theft of intellectual property and counterfeiting. Piracy and counterfeiting are not theft of finished products but of ideas, inventions, creations and discoveries, which are protected by trademarks, patents and copyrights.
