THE ERA OF COUNTERFEITING

The Era of counterfeiting

Table of Contents

I. History4

Combating Counterfeiting7

Awareness7

Prosecution8

Monitoring8

Modification9

Hands-off9

Consultation9

II. Topic9

Credit card fraud11

III. Social Impact12

Costs to countries where counterfeiting takes place13

IV. Economic Impact14

Costs to countries where counterfeits are sold15

Social costs16

Estimating the problem Aggregated losses16

V. Equipment18

Emerging markets20

Difficulties in measuring the market for fakes21

Measuring sales22

Private estimates23

Optical technologies24

Electronics25

Biotechnology26

Chemical technologies27

VI. Political Stand point28

VII. Cases34

Tiffany v. eBay 200835

VIII. Enforcement Reasonability37

Real I.D Act38

Penalties and laws39

Civil, administrative and criminal offence Civil action41

Criminal offence42

Administrative action43

IX. Conclusion45

References48

I. History

Eversince there has been money in America, there have been people trying to counterfeit it. According to historic records counterfeiters have always been skilled to the extent that when the first federal coins were issued by the U.S. government in the 1780's, they had the dies cut by an ex-counterfeiter in order to deter the practice, but it was during the Civil War that counterfeiting flourished once more because the United States government issued paper money for the first time.

As a result of this counterfeiting, the Secret Service was developed just to enforce the counterfeiting laws. Their job was to find the counterfeiters before the money ever made it into the money supply. Eventually, the Secret Service's operations expanded to include the protection of the president, which is on a completely different spectrum from deterring counterfeiting, which was an operation conducted by the Treasury.

However, it was the late twentieth century that brought about machinery such as color copiers and other electronic devices that made counterfeiting easier. It is estimated that nearly $10 billion in counterfeit bills were circulated between 1990 and 1995. That is why the United States began making changes to their bills in 1996, beginning with the $100 bill. The United States Treasury believes that the new designs on the bills make counterfeiting almost impossible, but with each change it is just a matter of time before counterfeiters find new ways to duplicate the bills.

“In 1682, William Penn complained that he could not bring his 'holy experiment' in Pennsylvania to fruition when half the coinage in the colony was phony.” (Thomas Craughwell, 2007: pg. 31). Counterfeit coins from England made their way overseas to become part of the American economy. Fake British halfpence were found during the construction of Interstate 95 in Pennsylvania. These coins date back to 1699, according to the University of Notre Dame Department of Special Collections. They are believed to have been buried shortly after arriving in America and never made it into general circulation.

Counterfeiting was such a problem in Connecticut in 1721 that the government considered accepting them as legal tender and valuing them at 2 pence.

Counterfeiting has generally been perceived by society as a victimless crime with 'fakes' simply constituting a cheap alternative purchase, and seen by criminals as having a low risk of prosecution with light penalties relative to the large profits to be made.

Intellectual Property crime costs the public and businesses hundreds of billions of US dollars every year, and in addition to the financial issue, also

Damages investment and innovation;

Has potentially disastrous economic consequences for small businesses;

Almost always escapes taxation, because ...