tBird wrote:
Rubbish! It's all your own opinions, whichever way you look at it. You should be a preacher, or maybe shoot for an even higher authority!
I think it's a question of law, not opinion. Certainly if you're knowingly selling something that pretends to be what it is not, that infringes upon a trade mark then that's illegal. So what of the purchaser, the person who buys counterfeit goods and buys them knowing that they are counterfeit?
I bought a fake guitar legally, through legal financial channels, and I paid the SA Government their share as per their calculations, according to the legal transaction invoice I submitted at SA Customs.
Did you declare the goods as being counterfeit? Look... I'm not going to dob you in to the SAP or anything, but I think you're being a bit mealy mouthed here. You knowingly bought an item that you knew to be a cheap fake from a business or person that you know deals in counterfeit goods. The only problem seems to be that when you got the cheap fake you were dismayed to find out that it was in fact a cheap fake.
So there, go and buy your fake LG plasma tv that is made "illegallly" in China and sold in most shopping center stores.
You really think most stores are going to buy goods that they know to be fake? They might buy genuine LG items from somebody other than the appointed distributors in SA but that's not the same thing. For one thing they can't afford to do it because their exposure is too high and the subsequent PR fall out would be too great.
I know places where you can buy pirate DVDs at the sort of price that is really too good to be true (and the DVDs are technically what they say they are but really crap quality). These are trestle tables set up in flea markets. You're not going to find Look & Listen or Musica knowingly selling such fakes.
