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China Cracks Down On Fake Apple Stores
angry tapir writes "The Chinese city of Kunming has stopped 22 fake Apple stores from illegally using the company's iconic trademarks after Apple lodged a complaint with authorities. Kunming authorities found 20 unauthorized Apple resellers. Currently, 11 of those resellers are being investigated. Two other stores were discovered for related violations. Slashdot first discussed the mushrooming of fake Apple Stores in July."
I wonder how many people will be executed for this whole ordeal.
You can't take the sky from me.
Maybe, but look at it from the flipside: China generally takes a very lax approach to Western copyright infringement. Them snapping to action to shut these stores down implies that China is afraid of Apple. Seriously. They fucked around with Google just like anyone else, but they're running scared under the fear that Apple will crack down on them.
Do the MacHeads realize just how much raw, unchecked power they're giving the lunatics at Apple? God help us all, China is afraid of them now!
The Chinese city of Kunming has arrested a counterfeit group of investigators from shutting down 22 dejure Apple stores, and have instead focussed on shutting down the counterfeit City of Kunming and it's officers. "It's a crazy day, indeed! We had a counterfeit city with it's own investigators arresting actual registered Apple franchises, and when these counterfeit officers were captured they were operating out of our very own city buildings! 2 sides to every business card I guess." We are currently looking into a new investigation of news reporting for nerds in which one man Wob 'CorporalPita` Marda alleges the counterfeiters have cloned his Technology News website FRAFDOT.ORG into a counterfeit domain SLASHDOT.ORG to misreport investigations that don't exist but in counterfeit City of Kunming."
I'm guessing that it's because Apple uses China for their manufacturing, and it would hurt the Chinese economy if they were to take their business elsewhere.
Since no one criticized the government, practiced free religion, or poisoned anyone, so it's doubtful anyone will be executed.
When will they crack down on the criminals that took this boy's kidney in a state hospital? Oh right, never.
Just pointing that doesn't matter how much or how less fascist your government is, if it's the Corp orders:
YOU
BEND
OVER
PERIOD
.
China generally takes a very lax approach to Western copyright infringement. Them snapping to action to shut these stores down implies that China is afraid of Apple. Seriously. They fucked around with Google just like anyone else, but they're running scared under the fear that Apple will crack down on them.
China is not afraid of Apple, they are trying to seduce Apple. China greatly dislikes that they assemble Apple products and do not really produce many of the more advanced components. They want Apple to relocate manufacturing to China. The question is, is Apple that dumb? I hope not.
And too lazy to read blogs about blogs about blogs ... Are these fake Apple stores that sell fake Apple products, or stores that sell regular Apple gear and just don't want to pay up for the logo rights and maintain the price policies of Apple?
Oh please. The United States executes more people per capita than China does.
You say that as if you think Apple cares. I have the distinct feeling that as long as it doesn't get on international news, they don't really care.
Great Intellect...
The staff at some stores even thought they were employed by Apple! Same t-shirts, same lanyards, same gay banter, etc.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
It is not clear if these fake stores also sell fake goods.
Or they simply sell Apple products without authorization?
I bought my iPad in Hong Kong (granted, it is not like the "other" China) in a little apple store in Nathan Road.
I had no problem at all.
China doesn't execute people for these relatively tiny sins. 50k yuan in the judge's pocket will get these people out in a week.
In soviet Russia, God creates you!
Are the people in China really this misinformed about the goings on in their country to where they have to have the authorities sort this out for them?
I can't imagine they would stand for shopping at these stores had they known, after all they're there for the brand name like the rest of us, aren't they?
Who says they were even alive in the first place? Sneaky TSR bastards!
And I'm guessing that they're just paying lip service to Apple, copyrights, patents and the like. And as soon as the store owners start paying the right people, it will be business as usual (again).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Though I'm sure they are working on how to overtake us in that as well
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
Yeah? How many USAsians are executed for non-violent crimes vs. China? Citation, pls.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I wonder how many people will be executed for this whole ordeal.
They wont be executed. They will just be fined and arrested, and sentenced into whatever prison camp pays or is owned by the local government authorities. If you think prison is big business in the US, you haven't seen anything until you look at China. Forced labor, manufacturing, hell, even WoW goldfarming is done in Chinese prisons. Why kill someone when they can make you a couple hundred dollars worth of profit a month without having to worry about the government coming after you?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Declined to comment on the closing the fake Apple Stores.
Apple has so much pull in China, they even pretended to care about an IP complaint? That's impressive.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
none - but if you mention it to anyone you'll find yourself in front of a firing squad, or worse still, working for foxconn.
Hahaha! Like where? who else is gonna give them macs for the price they do?
Chinese are a bunch of gutless sycophantic fucks who couldn't even conquer their island neighbours let alone launch a successful offensive against anyone. Hence the fear of apple
some one was either left out of the chain or their backer isn't high up enough; there are factories manufacturing counterfeit goods for years and no amount of complaints resulted in much of anything.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Theres a bunch of iphone knockoffs here in india too. Heres one with the specs:
http://mrtara.com/2010/04/21/ephone-mobile-phone-specifications-ephone-features-and-offers-ephone-mobile-price-in-india/
89$
It is more profitable for our corporate run prison system to keep people on death row indefinitely rather than actually execute them.
Capital punishment numbers are a little uncertain for China, but estimated to be appallingly large (two orders of magnitude more appalling than those of the USA). In fact, the USA was ranked fifth worldwide in total numbers legally executed in 2010. It was surpassed by Iran, Yemen, and North Korea as well as China.
On a per-capita basis, the USA is clearly not in the lead, and nowhere close to the top. In addition to the four countries listed above, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Equatorial Guinnea, Somalia, and a bunch of others have higher per capita executions. Disgracefully, the USA's score was 46 in 2010, or about 0.15 per million persons.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
China doesn't totally ban practice of religion. People are free to practice what they like, as long as they do what the government tells them to do. What the government has problem with, is organised religion, like Christianity, that tells people that they should do this and that, instead of what the government dictates.
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
Well that and the fact that China taxes Apple products(and most "foreign" products for that matter) out the wazoo and these stores were getting around it by sourcing their stuff from abroad(probably almost exclusively Hong Kong) and then selling them in China without paying the tax....
For comparison, I just checked the price on an entry level macbook air in China compared to the US, its about 25% more expensive in China, probably almost entirely due to taxes placed on it by the Chinese. Those same taxes do not get placed on goods made by Chinese companies.... And yet China constantly criticizes other countries for being "protectionist". Apparently China is allowed to be protectionist, but nobody else is.
Monstar L
For comparison, I checked the Hong Kong price, its actually CHEAPER(by about $15 US) than the price in the US is.
Monstar L
They'd wait for Chinese authorities to seize the stores as part of the case and then buy them for next to nothing. Already set up stores with the same look and feel as a legitimate store though they probably need some minor touch ups to bring them fully up to Apple spec. But...wow....they could get a new retail location for practically nothing.
1. I've read that the products sold were genuine.
2. Go to rural Alabama and ask those people about US intellectual property law. See how well they do. Somehow Americans expect people in a distant country who grew up under a communist regime ( not so communist for only the last 10 years. This is Kunming - not Shanghai or Beijing or Shenzhen ) to understand the laws of a country 5,000 miles away when a lot of Americans don't know American law. Then try asking people in Alabama making wood products to be shipped to China about the intricacies of Chinese building codes. If they don't know all the answers, what do you expect? We should put them in jail for not following Chinese laws?
Honestly people. Chinese in Kunming lived in a world from 200 years ago until just recently.
You know... sabotage ? (EG)
You might wanna consider googling something along the lines of "china executes businessman" then come back and say that.
Jesus taught people should obey the laws of the Romans and well educated pastors/preachers translate this into the modern day.
I don't think Jobs will go that far. Maybe just some mild torture.
And what have the Romans ever done for us?
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
This is the sound of the executives at apple caring:
Private prisons, what a bad idea
True, but misleading: one of the things that the government does not allow you to do, is to peacefully protest against the government.
At a lower level even than organized religion, you have schools of thought that basic morality sanctions peaceful protest. To deny that is not simply "harmonious union" or whatever party bullshit the politburo call it these days - it's tyranny.
All sovereigns everywhere take the view of religion that you mentioned, with only the occasional minor procedural allowance otherwise. The difference is how limited those sovereigns are when the practice in question is none of their business (usually, this means that it harms no-one, or at least no-one who does not genuinely consent). Peaceful protest, by definition, harms no-one.
That should have been their first clue that it was fake Apple. Steve Jobs doesn't give a damn about anyone else.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Regular, fake, shmake... they fell off the same production line most likely.
Are they sold at a discount since they will not include a manufacturers warranty, or does the fake store offer an equivalent warranty?
Well when these stories originally broke there were some employees at these stores that were surprised to learn they were not really working for Apple.
All the effort that goes into creating knock-offs could be used to make something truly original.
If you think prison is big business in the US, you haven't seen anything until you look at China.
On a per capita basis, the USA imprisons four times as many people as China.
The Economist had an interesting breakdown of an iPhone's manufacture. It actually looks like the U.S., Korea, Taiwan, and Japan are the biggest beneficiaries from the iPhone's manufacture. Well, aside from Apple itself that is. Foxconn's slice of the iPhone pie is minuscule.
About time they shut those joints down. Last time I was in Beijing I stopped by an apple store to get lunch, but when I bit into it -- wax!
The Aqueduct?
China, maybe to your surprise, is not part of the USA. They have their own laws. They don't give a rodents rectum about what laws would apply in Alabama when it comes to how they decorate some store in China, since that part of China is not actually in Alabama. If you were able to quote applicable international treaties and maybe even local China law, I'd be all ears. Until then, your argument is not applicable.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison), USA has more prisoners than china even in absolute numbers!
Some quick calculations tell me USA actually imprissions over five times as many people as China per capita.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
The Google case was different. Google was competing directly in the Chinese market - and China is *very* protective of its own economy. If Google had only required a million slaves to update its indexes by hand, China would have happily opened its firewall for them.
Could the reason be that there aren't any niggers in China?
Actually they have more of a problem with self-actualizing spirituality movements like fa-lung-gong/da-fa. They aren't to worried about a religion that tells them to be sheep, not worry about material goods, help your neighbour, and that you can never amount to anything on your own.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Apple has more power over China than the entire American government... That's really sad.
When's the last time the US government was able to make China change any of their policies?.
All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?
My sig can beat up your sig.
Well that's one way of looking at it. The other is that Foxconn's revenue is about $60 billion, and Apple is their largest customer. That's not small change, and whatever way you look at it it's orders of magnitude more important to the Chinese economy than 22 fake Apple Stores.
You've got it wrong way around, what matters is not how much of iPhone is Foxconn's plants, but how much of Foxconn's plants are iPhone.
I wonder how many people will be executed for this whole ordeal.
I remember during the cold war, all sorts of nonsense was talked in the west about Russia. I see that now America is challenged in economic might by China, they are now object of the disinformation and wild conjecture.
There's LOTS of electronic manufacturing companies with offices in Hong Kong, and the factories just over the border in Shenzhen
You can find all kinds of repacked / refurbished / overrun / returned / third shift / fell off of the truck products for sale in Hong Kong. The prices are low - but there might be a problem with warranty coverage, etc. You'll see lots of electronics being sold on Ebay with the seller located in Hong Kong. I spent a few days there last month and was amazed at how much pirated / questionable merchandise was being sold openly.
Very common: Shenzhen factory making whizbangs has some duds and returns - it's not worth attempting to repair them so they sell them off for scrap. Enterprising people buy up a pile of dead Apple or Linksys (or whatever) and sort it out; use the AC adapter from the one with the bad motherboard to fix the one that only needs a new AC adpapter, etc. Then sell the "new" equipment for a small yet significant discount.
Actually, its more likely bribes were involved.
Bribes are required to get anything like this done in China.
Were the fake stores actually a plus to Apple? While they are not authentic Apple Stores, they still are pretty neat shops which sell original Apple gear.
Like most countries, China doesn't give a rip about your overseas IP; if it's not Chinese, it doesn't matter. Likewise in the US - if you infringe a Chinese or Japanese patent in the US, the US doesn't care. Funny how that works - countries only care about IP registered in their own countries (and this includes the EU where you can register with the EU and PCT, but still need to apply for patents in each individual country for protection). Apple now has a trademark on "Apple" for computers and electronics, so the Chinese authorities took action. No trademark in China? The Chinese government wouldn't do anything...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I wonder how many people will be executed for this whole ordeal.
What idiots vote this nonsense "interesting"? China has executed people for selling milk with generous amounts of grinded plastic added, making hundred thousands sick. China has executed people for stealing millions from state owned businesses. China doesn't execute people for opening a shop with a false Apple logo.
How many Britons are executed vs. USA?
Thus Britain is more virtuous then US, yes?
The prices I quoted were from the Apple site, so I doubt its something that just "fell off the truck"
Monstar L
Why can't we execute businessmen?
Does that include those that are executed?
Max.
Thanks for the link, the map is really informative, from an Aussie's POV I find it unsurprising we are in the same band as Canada but I didn't expect China to be in there too.
I recently read another appalling statistical comparison ( somewhere on scienceblogs ), it said; -
The 27 nations of western Europe (including the UK) have a total population of 500M and a prison population of 600K (total for ALL crimes). The USA has a total population of 300M and a prison population of 500K (DRUG crimes only).
[citation] - According to my legacy 1950's wetware.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Yes.
Even taking the highest estimates for execution in China, it's still thousands of executions compared to millions of prisoners; statistically it makes little difference to the "five times" estimate.
China currently executes roughly 10x more people per capita than the US.
Ofcourse that's ignoring the US "backlog" of several thousands sentenced to death still in prison; these may or may not be executed in the future. But also this number would make little difference statistically.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Fake Steve Jobs, of course.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
You might wanna consider googling something along the lines of "china executes businessman" then come back and say that.
And usually for things that would be a good idea to execute people for, even if death penalty was abolished for all other crimes.
Can someone tell me why Bernie Madoff, former Enron executives, and all current Goldman Sachs management are all alive while piddly murderers, some not even serial, are executed?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
It is looking very good for me,ir it's goo when that ,i hope that.
Brought peace?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSELOCMmw4A
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
How do you know it was the 'real' Apple site?
Korma: Good
Um, unless somehow the fake apple store people have hacked apple.com/hk to sell there stuff, I'm pretty sure its the real apple site.
Monstar L
Fair enough. Some will face some crazy sentences. Or perhaps, like many posts indicated, will just pay their way out of this one.
Having said that, whoever made the call to mimic a Western store should have also considered the consequences. I have very little sympathy for people who break the law (for their personal gain) and then complain when they get caught. Even if it's trademark or copyright legislation. Those folks tend not to regret the infringement but the fact that they got caught.
If you can't do the time, then don't do the crime.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
The justice system in Britain has a completely different focus than the justice system in the US. One, the focus is on punishing teh eebil criminalz. The other, the focus is on preventing the crime from happening again. Capital punishment is rarely required to prevent a crime from happening again.
Can someone tell me why Bernie Madoff, former Enron executives, and all current Goldman Sachs management are all alive while piddly murderers, some not even serial, are executed?
I think there are a couple of reasons.
Firstly even though it's damage to society may well be lower murder is viewed as a worse crime than mass financial fraud.
Secondly the US is a structure of multiple governements some of which are big on the death penalty (according to wikpedia texas accounts for over a third of US executions since 1976) , some of which rarely use it and some of which never use it. Afaict murder is usually handled on a state level which means it's the state government/legal system that decides whether to apply the death penalty. The federal government (which usually ends up dealing with large scale financial crime since it nearly always has an interstate component) seems to fall into the "rarely uses it" category.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Apple also has enough free cash to rebuild their operations anywhere on the planet and take everything in-house.
Apparently China is allowed to be protectionist, but nobody else is.
That is China's stance on pretty much everything.
I was jk really, but actually, as we've seen recently it is probably a lot easier to set up a fake website on someone else's server than fake up an actual shop or 10.
Korma: Good
And I'm guessing that they're just paying lip service to Apple, copyrights, patents and the like. And as soon as the store owners start paying the right people, it will be business as usual (again).
Apple isn't some company that can be hijacked without any real consequences. They literally make EVERYTHING in China and are a major hardware player. China could care less about most things fake such as fake purses, fake IDs, fake software, fake clothing, etc. A fake Gucci purse isn't going to cause much trouble and the enforcement of it would really be a drag and would not add any value since all that stuff is made else where by not hugely influential companies.
China really doesn't have much to gain from fake Apple stores. They are upfrontly damaging the brand of company which moves a lot of product in China and they are not paying the higher taxes which US companies have to pay. They are making a mockery of Chinese and the Chinese don't want to be made to look like idiots.
China is never going to give a shit about fake apple products being made though. You can make fake iPhones and iPods all frikin' day. Fakes are a joke in China, and are something to be expected that even companies don't usually give a shit. However, hijacking an entire brand is different.
No one over there cares. Last time I was over there, I had the opportunity to eat at Harry Potter Burger. (I did not, but could have.) Everyone knew it was fake, but did not care. There is a long established history in China of taking someone's intellectual property and bastardizing it. For example, the last 40 chapters of Dreams of Red Mansions.
To the Mandarin mind, if it is not government work, it is just a way to make money and not terribly important. The fake Apple Stores are a minor embarrassment, but that is all. That is just how the culture works.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
I think this is less about appeasing Apple or respecting IP and more about "Don't you ever dare embarrass the central and provincial governments again." Rampant trademark violations are one thing as long as the right palms are greased, but rampant trademark violations that bring huge attention and international mocking and condemnation is a whole different story.
You've obviously not paying attention for the past few years... This isn't the first time, nor will it be the last.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Or perhaps China realizes that copyrights don't mean much when so much is being created anyways.
But patents and trademarks, if China wants to be the next superpower, they do need those. Patents - well, it's obvious if they want to control upcoming technology. Trademarks are important as well - if China isn't known for obeying trademarks, then the world might very well not pay attention to Chinese trademarks. So when Foxconn makes some next-gen products under the Foxconn name (HTC used to only be an ODM and not an end product manufacturer), should China allowed a bunch of trademark violations, nothing's to stop someone in the US or other countries from doing the same to China's marks.
China can't coast on "cheap factory labor" forever - eventually it'll start producing capital-intensive goods and they'll need to ensure that people respect the Chinese marks. By enforcing other trademarks they can ensure this. Last thing they want is to have other countries undermining China's marks.
How is it funny? There's plenty of situations where one country doesn't give a crap about the criminal laws of another, why would property law be any different in that regard?
and whatever way you look at it it's orders of magnitude more important to the Chinese economy than 22 fake Apple Stores.
That's really the bottom line. For next to nothing, they can create good will. Now if these stores were generating a few billion, likely China would have told Apple to get bent.
People don't want something truly original. They want something popular.
China knows supply and demand better than any country in the world. They're making money hand over fist.
In a socialist "safety net" country I can see how financial fraud shouldn't be as big a deal.
But in a country with no/minimal "safety nets", having lots of people swindled out of their life savings means the odds of those people dying prematurely go up a lot.
When winter comes by and you can no longer afford heating or even shelter and food, you'd might just die.
The thing is, executing the swindlers doesn't help keep the swindled alive either. But regular consistent execution of swindlers would reduce the number of swindlers - they might decide to pick a safer line of "work".
It that a fake Home Depot next door? How about McD? If you dig deep enough you'll find a lot more.
So should Apple just turn the other way, and let these egregious violations take place without taking any kind of action just because some people might be punished for it?
Now if these stores were generating a few billion, likely China would have told Apple to get bent.
And Apple would then have told China to get bent, moving all of their manufacturing elsewhere.
[Citation Needed]. And how many of those were violent, heinous crimes verses peaceful crimes like simply speaking against the government?
Which would very likely still be a win for China.
Article states that only half of them are being investigated... sounds more like a local mob policies than any real enforcement.
The ones getting investigated are just in the wrong local gang.
Shut your fucking face you communist jew.
http://maps.google.com/local_url?q=http://www.bocsit.com/&dq=boston+courier+service&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&fb=1&gl=us&hq=courier+service&hnear=0x89e3652d0d3d311b:0x787cbf240162e8a0,Boston,+MA&cid=15430840937436653121&ved=0CCIQ5AQ&sa=X&ei=XTpJTsfhLo22yQT-n6mdCA&s=ANYYN7k7OvbkzHAHX_7ZWQAlPMHgJsj18A"
No, not really. Someone that large pulling out of China is going to make waves. In addition to all the lost jobs, there is bound to be an insane amount of press coverage on the story. Now China is no longer seen as a place where IP isn't respected, but a place that doesn't even respect Chinese IP (Apple has several trademarks registered in China, as do many of the other companies that do business there), and will tell you to "get bent" when you ask them to resolve it. Given that, there are bound to be many other companies that decide to follow suit.
They literally make EVERYTHING in China
I can guarantee you this isn't true.
/* No Comment */
They literally make EVERYTHING in China
I can guarantee you this isn't true.
Ok maybe not literally, but practically.
Well and also taiwan.
No, the Chinese idea of a trademark is different to the western idea, this means that China has more relaxed regulations on copyright IP but comes down hard on trademark IP, trademarks have a much better protection in China than they have in the west