Manufacturers of luxury goods invest signifcantly in their products, in market research, branding, design, product test and quality control. In addition there are brand building, advertising costs and investment risks. Yet counterfeiters simply imitate what manufacturers have produced, neglecting creative design, cutting out the cost of business risk, research, advertising, promotion, and testing. Counterfeiters reap the fruits of other people's labour. This is no different than piracy in the software, movie and music industries.
Pirates make money with their low prices, while genuine businesses suffer.
Quietly, intellectual piracy and counterfeiting stifle development of these industries and erode our economy. Recently there are photocopying shops which are hawking photocopied textbooks. The chairman of the Hong Kong Publishing Professionals Society Ltd and president of the Copyright Dr Chan Man-hung pointed out that Hong Kong people are not accustomed to respecting intellectual property. Hong Kongers consider publishers to be profiteers, and should not be paid royalties. This attitude makes law enforcement difficult, and is unfair to publishers.