Think that no one get hurts when you buy a knockoff item? According to Art historian and author Noah Charney, your dead wrong. In a recent article over at Salon, author Noah Charney discusses the sale of counterfeit luxury goods in Italy. Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Hermès, Fendi. Her article draws a link between the sale of counterfeit goods and the growing human rights issue of human trafficking, a form of modern slavery where people profit from the control and exploitation of others.

The author Charney tells a story of a man he recently witnessed on the street in Rome, whom he says “is part of what is a subsection of human trafficking, not quite a modern-day slave, but not far from it. He volunteered to be smuggled out of his home in Africa to a new life in Italy. He is housed and fed, and bused into the city center, where he sells alongside a team of fellow refugees, catering mostly to tourists. He is paid, but barely, and is expected to repay those who organized his transfer from Africa to the promise of Italy, and who keep him fed and housed, in a system designed for him never to quite buy his independence.”  He goes onto say that. "A lot of us buy luxury goods, which cost us hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of dollars. It’s always safest to go to the Louis Vuitton or Fendi store, but there is a ravenous appetite for “designer impostor” luxury goods. We spend hundreds of billions per year on fake versions of what we think we’re buying, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not. Products labeled as “designer imposters,” or some equivalent are usually safe, because they are overt imitations (though the conditions of the workers who produce them may be objectionable). But when we buy imitation luxury goods, there’s always a chance that we are donating our cash to the continuation of a form of human trafficking."

His words bring attention to the real human consequences of the counterfeit trade. Aside from the economic problems of lost sales, profits and tax revenues, the emotionally compelling element of counterfeiting is the systematic exploitation of labor, and in such instances Charney's words portray a deeper reality of what consumers are supporting when they buy these items. 

A few years back, debating the fight against fakes, myself and a few IP scholars discussed whether the damage caused by counterfeits, was a real problem or fake one.  Despite what some commentators may argue, Charney's article highlights that buying counterfeit designer goods is often hardly harmless, and has a real human cost.

Her entire piece can be read here. And more on the scholarly debate around counterfeits can be found here and here.