Every time you walk around Sarojni Nagar market or Connaught Palace in Delhi, you find the scads of well finished Louis Vuitton handbags being sold for Rs.500 or less, depending on your bargaining skills; and, a pack of sniggering aunties carrying it on their shoulders and precisely scanning their moves, to awe everybody at the next kitty party. You get lured too as now counterfeiters literacy rate is rapidly on rise in India. They no more write ‘NKIE’ for ‘NIKE’. Moreover, fakes are so good these days that you simply can’t tell the difference. Cheap material, flimsy finishing and misspelled logos can depreciate the soaring credit in the ledger of the parallel industry.

The counterfeit industry runs because there is a massive demand of knockoff products around the world. So suppliers operating from noxious ghettos champion into trademark or patent infringement and promote human trafficking and child labour besides, creating heavy losses to the brands being ripped off. In some cases they are directly or indirectly found guilty of funding crime syndicates and terrorism. According to evidence, 1993 bombing of World Trade Center was funded by sale of counterfeit apparels.

In most of the cases, expensive brands which are easy to be imitated at low rates are counterfeited. Even some counterfeits are made in the same factories, using same materials where originals are produced. Piracy has turned out to be an economic and social problem of international level urging the need of serious curbing. In India, there is no strict law enforcement against counterfeiting where Delhi is the hub of this legal trade practice accounting for 70% of the total counterfeits produced in the country; you can easily run a counterfeit unit here without paying taxes.

Internationally, it’s a major concern with brands asking for their Intellectual property rights. Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition is one such organization combating with trademark and product counterfeiting. International Campaign like ‘Fake Cost More’ is endorsed by Jackie Chan. Even, Harper Bazaar’s ‘fakes are never in fashion’, an online portal, is waging a fight against fakes. In one such recent development against counterfeiting, a new bill is being proposed in New York City’s Chinatown district to fine those who buy counterfeits up to $1000 to stop the demand and, hence the criminal activities associated with such products.

It’s not counterfeits are sold only in vans at the roadside, flea markets or anonymous auctions, but the biggies like Wal-Mart was accused of selling fake Gucci bags once and e-bay had 90% of fake Louis Vuitton, Celine and Dior. Moreover, online auctions on Google and Facebook, flagrantly sell the counterfeits advertising their products as of Gucci and Chanel. In one such move, Google recently shut down about 50,000 accounts for attempting to use their Google Adword program to promote counterfeit goods. The hosting site Go Daddy has been too shutting down all sites that have any sort of infringing content.

Similarly, Design piracy, the blatant copying of another’s designs, is akin to counterfeiting without affixing the fake designer label.  In India, design piracy and lack of copyrights protection are the reasons why many Indian designers avoid online selling. A year back, designer Manish Malhotra was seeking for copyrights to protect his designs. And, Pravesh & Jai accusation of plagiarism on Riyaz Gangji created a heated debate over plagiarism and inspiration in India. Recently, Gauri and Nanika were slighted for imitating Oscar De La Renta for their LFW 2011 grand finale collection.

So, next time while shopping when you see the Lacoste Crocodile facing left rather than right or Gucci distorted ‘Gs’, think that the product you are buying cost someone a broken leg or robbed childhood.