Modern-Day Pirates 仿你千遍也不“赝”倦

Tired of paying $2000 for a Louis Vuitton handbag? Snatch up a replica of the designer's work in Hong Kong's street markets for only a thousand, and it will take a leather expert and a microscope to tell it apart from the real McCoy. Such sophisticated counterfeiting only scratches the surface of a problem that is plaguing corporations around the world.

In Asia, this business draws everyone from powerful underworld organizations with ties to politics and the military to husband-and-wife teams who brew fake Coca-Cola in bathtubs. The prevalence of and demand for these rip-off goods accounts for approximately US$200 to 300 billion in annual global losses for multinationals such as Nike or Yamaha.

Look at a typical illegal CD plant based in Malaysia. After bribing key officials and plunking down cash for CD duplication machines and such, the plant can expect to take in about US$1 million each month. Sometimes, the profit margins are better than in trafficking narcotics.

Corporations, increasingly frustrated with ineffectual efforts by governments to crack down on piracy, have either turned to private detectives for help or have even built their own antipiracy squads in hopes of stemming the avalanche of bogus merchandise.

Unlike law enforcement agencies, however, piracy profiteers play by no rules, and arrests and convictions are few and far between. Consequently, corporations point out that without better cooperation from governments, their war has already been lost.

没有兴趣买两千美元的LV手提包吗？在香港的路边小摊，到处都有名牌设计师的仿制品，只需花一千元，而且要皮革专家用显微镜才能与McCoy真货区别开来。诸如此类精致的赝品，不过是触及了问题的表面，世界各公司、企业均深受其害。

在亚洲，这项“行业”吸引着每一个人，大到与政界、军方勾结的强大的黑社会组织，小到在浴缸里仿制可口可乐 的小夫妻小组。这些“赝品”随处可见、需求量之大，使得像Nike、YAMAHA等跨国公司每年全球损失高达二千亿到三千亿美元。

看看在马来西亚的某间典型的违法CD制造厂。先贿赂重要官员，再花大钱买下CD刻录机等等，这家工厂预计每个月可赚一百万美金左右。这种利润有时比贩卖大麻还可观。

由于各国政府打击假冒伪劣产品成效不显著，各公司渐感失望之馀，转而求助私家侦探，甚至自己成立反仿冒小组，希望能遏止排山倒海而来的伪造商品。

然而，靠仿冒牟利的人可不像执法机关那样按牌理出牌，被捕判罪者少之又少。为此，各公司指出，少了政府的大力配合，这场仗他们已经输了。