By Carolyn Enting*
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Your new luxury superfake handbag might fool everyone, but what are the ethics around on-selling or gifting it?
On online forum Repladies Designer, members tend to "rehome" their luxury superfakes within the community of replica buyers, for good reason.
In New Zealand the Copyright Act 1994 and the Trade Marks Act 2002 contain a range of criminal offences that can lead to prosecution. In 2012 two Auckland apparel distributors were fined $20,000 each for importing counterfeit jeans.
The New Zealand Customs Service plays a role in protecting New Zealand from unlawful imports or exports of pirated goods and counterfeit goods. Border enforcement measures are not undertaken for goods imported by a person for their private and domestic use, but that doesn't let buyers off the hook.
"Personal use is exempt," says intellectual property specialist Natalie Harre, principal at AJ Park Law Limited.
"It is not illegal to buy for yourself and your personal use but if you go on to on sell it, you're now in breach of the Act. You're now dealing in counterfeit goods."
Shopping fakes
Private sellers or agents act as middlemen between factories and buyers, and distribute goods via sales platforms like DHgate, AliExpress and Pandabuy. Once connected to a seller through channels such as WhatsApp or WeChat, the agent will provide links to shop items. When you know what you're looking for, the shop fronts can be found in plain sight.
"They'll have a shop on AliExpress but then they'll send you their album where you can see everything," says luxury fake buyer and Auckland mum Rachel* (name changed for privacy reasons).
Natalie Harre, a lawyer from from AJ Park. Photo: Supplied
Buying the items this way is also a leap of faith that you're going to end up with what you think you are getting, Rachel explains. For example, to order a super fake handbag in a colourway that you want you may be directed to a page showing completely different items, like men's suits that are numbered and told to select no 2 if want to order the "Birkin" in blue.
But generally you can shop what you want through the seller and even request your preferred factory. Chat on forums often reveals favoured factories identified by a number or nickname. The real names and locations of the factories are kept secret to protect the source of the goods.
"It's this parallel world that's underneath us where you can buy basically anything you want," says Rachel.
"One thing that they keep saying in the forums is that a lot of handbags are midnight shift work, so the factory will be making it for the designer during the day, and they'll make copies to sell themselves in the evening. Obviously, there's nothing to prove or disprove that, but everything is subcontracted out so it's very possible."
New Zealand accessories label Deadly Ponies is one of the local brands that has had to deal with being copied. Director Liam Bowden says their work is more often copied by other New Zealand brands than bigger overseas suppliers.
He has resigned himself to viewing being copied as a "compliment", though it does have an impact on business.
"When you manufacture overseas and do development work with them, sometimes you can't control if they repeat the order and change the colour and start selling it off to someone else at the same rate or less, or replicate the same product," says Bowden.
Silent on the subject
For the most part the affected fashion brands prefer to stay quiet on the matter of being copied, preferring to work with authorities in the background.
"Corporate sensitivity" was cited by one high profile designer as a reason to decline an interview. And despite reaching out to multiple luxury brand houses, most requests for an interview were unanswered, though one did reply to explain that as employees they were unable to comment.
"New Zealand Customs inspect incoming shipments but of course they cannot inspect everything. It's physically impossible," says Harre.
"They have an IP rights team and frontline officers who are trained in identifying copies. If they open a shipment, box or container and there appears to be goods that don't look genuine and are confident that it's a counterfeit, the importer will be given 10 working days to either apply for return of goods on the basis that they're genuine or forfeit them. If a Customs officer isn't sure if the goods are counterfeit or not, they'll contact the rights holder, trade mark owner or in most cases an agent. Nine times out of 10 they'll be counterfeits."
In most cases, says Harre, importers forfeit goods, which are destroyed on a routine basis by Customs.
So don't get too excited if you find a Chanel Classic at your local op shop. The chances of it being the real thing are slim.
*Carolyn Enting is a freelance writer.