Modern-Day Pirates 仿你千遍也不“贗”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.

沒有興趣買兩千美元的LV手提包嗎？在香港的路邊小攤，到處都有名牌設計師的仿制品，只需花一千元，而且要皮革專家用顯微鏡才能與McCoy真貨區別開來。諸如此類精致的贗品，不過是觸及了問題的表面，世界各公司、企業均深受其害。

在亞洲，這項“行業”吸引著每一個人，大到與政界、軍方勾結的強大的黑社會組織，小到在浴缸里仿制可口可樂 的小夫妻小組。這些“贗品”隨處可見、需求量之大，使得像Nike、YAMAHA等跨國公司每年全球損失高達二千億到三千億美元。

看看在馬來西亞的某間典型的違法CD制造廠。先賄賂重要官員，再花大錢買下CD刻錄機等等，這家工廠預計每個月可賺一百萬美金左右。這種利潤有時比販賣大麻還可觀。

由于各國政府打擊假冒偽劣產品成效不顯著，各公司漸感失望之馀，轉而求助私家偵探，甚至自己成立反仿冒小組，希望能遏止排山倒海而來的偽造商品。

然而，靠仿冒牟利的人可不像執法機關那樣按牌理出牌，被捕判罪者少之又少。為此，各公司指出，少了政府的大力配合，這場仗他們已經輸了。