The 1935 Indian Arts and Crafts Act created the Indian Arts and Crafts Board within Interior to promote the economic welfare of Indian tribes and individuals through the development of Indian arts and crafts and through the expansion of the market for the products of Indian art and craftsmanship. In support of this mission, the Board: implements the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, as amended; increases the participation of Native Americans in the fine arts and crafts business; assists emerging artists entering the market; and assists Native American cultural leaders in supporting the evolution and preservation of tribal cultural activities. The Board’s policies are determined by its five commissioners—currently including four representatives from American Indian and Alaska Native communities and the Deputy Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection—who are appointed by the Secretary of the Interior and serve without compensation. With a fiscal year 2010 budget of about $1.2 million, the Board currently has three professional and two administrative staff in the Washington, D.C., office to carry out its responsibilities, including a Director with overall responsibility for implementing the Board’s policies, and four full-time and one part-time temporary staff to operate three museums. A priority of the Board is the implementation and enforcement of the act’s provisions to prevent misrepresentation. The Indian Arts and Crafts Act is essentially a truth-in-advertising law that prohibits misrepresentation in the marketing of Indian arts and crafts products within the United States and provides criminal and civil penalties for marketing products as Indian made when such products are not made by Indians. Under the act, it is unlawful to offer or display for sale or to sell any good in a manner that falsely suggests it is Indian produced, an Indian product, or the product of a particular Indian or Indian tribe or Indian arts and crafts organization resident in the United States. Under the act and its implementing regulations, an Indian is an individual who is a member of an Indian tribe or who is certified by an Indian tribe as a nonmember Indian artisan. Indian tribes include federally recognized tribes, Alaska Native villages, and state-recognized tribes. An Indian arts and crafts organization is any legally established arts and crafts marketing organization composed of members of Indian tribes. The terms “Indian product” and “product of a particular Indian tribe or Indian arts and crafts organization” are defined in two regulations promulgated by the Board. The regulations implementing the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 that were issued in October 1996 defined in general the nature and origin of Indian products. In June 2003, as directed by the Indian Arts and Crafts Enforcement Act of 2000, the Board promulgated additional regulations that include specific examples of items that may be marketed as Indian products and when non-Indians may make and sell Indian-style arts and crafts, thereby informing the public as to when an individual may be subject to civil or criminal penalties for falsely marketing a good as an Indian product. The act designated the Board as the primary agency to handle complaints of violations of the act. Individuals who witness market activity they believe may be in violation of the act can contact the Board to report this activity in a number of ways. The Board’s Web site provides an online form that can be completed and submitted to the Board’s staff for review, which also includes examples of how violations can occur at various venues, such as retail stores, powwows, Internet Web sites, or when an artist and consumer meet in person. The form permits the person submitting the complaint to provide personal contact information or file anonymously, and it requests information on the alleged violator, date, location, and venue of the violation; the type of art or craft involved; how the item was offered for sale and what representations were made about it—such as statements regarding authenticity of the item or the tribal membership of the maker— and any documentation that may help to verify the complaint, such as advertisements or catalogs. Complaints may also be written or faxed directly to the Board’s office in Washington, D.C., or may be reported by phone directly to the office or via the Board’s toll-free complaint line, (888) ART-FAKE. The Board maintains computerized files of complaints and tracks subsequent follow-up actions by its staff or other federal or state agencies to which it refers complaints for further investigation. Lacking criminal investigators on its own staff, the Board relies on other law enforcement agencies for assistance in enforcing the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. Since the mid-1990s, the Board has referred complaints to the FBI; Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, Office of Inspector General, and National Park Service; and state attorneys general for investigation. The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 designated the FBI to investigate violations of the act. To bolster its investigative resources, the Board worked with Interior to put in place in 2007 a memorandum of understanding between the Departments of Justice and the Interior to allow all appropriate Interior law enforcement officers to work such cases. The Board now has a memorandum of agreement with National Park Service Investigative Services for a full-time dedicated agent to work on Indian Arts and Crafts Act cases through a reimbursable support agreement. The dedicated National Park Service agent coordinates with fellow National Park Service agents on these investigations and encourages collaborations with other Interior law enforcement officers. The Board also coordinates with offices of state attorneys general on investigations of alleged violations of state Indian arts and crafts laws. After passage of the Indian Arts and Crafts Amendments Act of 2010, any federal law enforcement officer can investigate alleged violations of the act. To further protect Indian artists, the Board works with the Patent and Trademark Office to promote registration of trademarks for arts and crafts marketing purposes. A trademark is a distinctive sign or indicator—such as a word, name, symbol, design, image, or any combination thereof—used by a person or organization to uniquely identify the source of its products or services and to distinguish them from those of other individuals or entities. Registering trademarks with the Patent and Trademark Office or a state bars others from registering marks likely to cause confusion with previously registered trademarks. Trademarks are part of what is collectively termed “intellectual property,” which includes copyrights, patents, and trade secrets—anything that one might create—as distinguished from more tangible things that might be owned, such as a house or car, or “real property.” A copyright is the exclusive right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute, for a certain period of time, original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, such as literary, musical, or artistic works. The Board educates Indian artists about intellectual property through on-site meetings with tribal governments and members and distributes a brochure on the subject. The brochure also refers artists needing additional information to the World Intellectual Property Organization—a specialized agency of the United Nations dedicated to developing a balanced and accessible international intellectual property system. In June 2005, Interior’s Office of Inspector General issued a review of counterfeit Indian arts and crafts. The report concluded that the extent of the problem is difficult to quantify because of limited statistics, conflicting perceptions of what makes something counterfeit, and public misconceptions about federal and state laws. The report also concluded that enforcement of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act largely depends on the cooperation of agencies outside of Interior’s control and that criminal enforcement actions have had no measurable effect on counterfeit activity. The report suggested actions to mitigate the situation, including (1) amending the act to provide the Board greater enforcement authority and capabilities; (2) collaborating with Customs and Border Protection to revise the country of origin marking regulations to remove exceptions and require that Indian-style jewelry items be indelibly marked; (3) working with Congress or the Department of Commerce, or both, to allow the Board to facilitate trademark registration for Indians, tribes, and arts and crafts organizations; and (4) seeking civil penalties for misrepresentation before seeking criminal penalties. The actual size of the Indian arts and crafts market, and extent of misrepresentation that is occurring, are unknown, because existing estimates are outdated, limited in scope, or anecdotal and no national sources contain the data necessary to make reliable estimates. Conducting a comprehensive study to estimate the size of the market and level of misrepresentation would be complex and costly and may not provide reliable results. Instead of exact information, descriptions of the size of the Indian arts and crafts market and extent of misrepresentation are based largely on estimates prepared by various federal and state entities. However, we found that these estimates are outdated and unreliable. For example, the most recent and relevant national estimates were provided in a 1985 Department of Commerce study. The study estimated gross sales of $400 million to $800 million annually for the Indian arts and crafts industry and that 10 to 20 percent of the market is misrepresented. Our analysis of the methodology used to produce the study, however, found that these estimates are not only outdated but also unreliable. Specifically, a primary contributor to the study told us that the estimates were based on “guesses” from industry experts, not data collected from a survey or other systematic data collection technique and can therefore be considered only as opinions. Nevertheless, these estimates have been referred to repeatedly in other reports and documents on the topic. For example, Interior’s 2005 Inspector General report cites the Department of Commerce estimate of $400 million to $800 million in annual gross sales for the industry. In addition, a fact sheet put out by the Board states that the Indian arts and crafts industry has $1 billion in gross sales annually, which, according to a Board official, is based on the Department of Commerce’s 1985 estimate adjusted for inflation. Similarly, state and local studies that have described the arts and crafts markets in specific locations are also limited in their scope and methodology, making them unusable for estimating the size of the national Indian arts and crafts market or the extent of misrepresentation. For example, in 2001 the Alaska State Council on the Arts commissioned a private research company to study Alaska’s arts industry.