Ownership, Ego, Sharing, and Counterfeiting

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Ownership, Ego, Sharing,and Counterfeiting

• Russell W. Belk
• University of Utah, USA
• Lancaster University
• Management School (visiting)

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What (if anything) is wrong with buying a fake
Luis Vuitton Handbag?

• Is counterfeiting new?
• Brand forgery is newest
• Preceded by Money forgery
• Preceded by Art forgery
• Preceded by Notions of Specific Individuals as
  the sources of art
• Preceded by the Rise of Possessive Individualism
  (at least in some cultures)
• All of Which are Preceded by Notions of Sharing
• Premise Counterfeiting is an unauthorized
  sharing of brands

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Sharing An Alternative to Private Ownership

• Also Includes
• Voluntary lending
• Contractual renting
• Gift-giving
• Pooling allocation of resources
• Authorized use of public property
• Unauthorized use by theft, vandalism, or trespass

Fan Tin Tsuen No. 250 Opening Hours Noon-4 a.
m. Outside catering order Phone [phone]
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What we Share

• We can share things, places, people, pets, ideas,
  values, time, affection, animosity
• Excludes non-volitional coincidence involving
  things we dont own or control
• Sharing a common place of birth
• Sharing a language
• Sharing a set of experiences

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Sharing Defined

• The act and process of giving or losing what is
  ours to others for their use
• The act and process of receiving or taking
  something from others for our use
• When we share what we feel is ours, others come
  to feel it is at least partly theirs to use
• Use may be for an indefinite or prescribed period
  for anothers exclusive use or for use by us as
  well as others
• Givers and receivers can be individuals or groups
  
• Distribution may or may not make the access to
  things more equal

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Cultural Influences

• Sharing, possession, ownership are all
  culturally learned behaviors
• In the West, possession ownership learned
  first sharing, fairness, justice later
• Australian aborigines learn sharing first
• Vestigial effect from nomadic past
• Led to difficulties with private cars VCRs
• Culture also prescribes what is selfish vs.
  altruistic, generous vs. stingy, fair vs. unfair

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Mixed Effects of Sharing

• Recipient can feel grateful or hostile
• We may feel we get our fair share, more, or less
• Can reduce envy foster feelings of community or
  create dependency feelings of inferiority
• We may see sharing as a sincere effort to help or
  a sop
• Can take place within excess or insufficiency
• We may share broadly or narrowly

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Impediments to Sharing

• Feelings of object attachment
• Cathecting objects as part of extended self
  (e.g., body organs)
• Materialism
• The importance attached to possessions
• Components envy, possessiveness, non-generosity
• Accounts of materialism in 4 cultures
• E.g., Christmas giving
• From broad charitable giving
• To narrow giving with the family

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Sharing the Museum Without Walls

• Fine art is Finite
• But it can be broadly distributed
• Art Museums
• Inexpensive copies
• What is the problem here?
• Benjamins loss of aura
• Denigrating reproduction, fraud, fake, forgery
• Status hierarchies e.g, Visiting Luxor in Egypt
  vs. Las Vegas, vs. books, Internet postcards

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Incentives to Share Intangibles

• Some of our intangibles are not legally ours
  a view, an aisle seat, our song
• Other intangibles may be our property ideas,
  designs, various creations
• Academic ideas ours vs. plagiarized
• Presenting publishing sharing
• It also the way to make them ours
• We should give them rather than sell them
• We are more apt to share with doctoral students
• But sharing raw data less likely
• Others may admire our garden, but may not borrow
  our tools, seeds, potting soil

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Sharing without Losing

• A song, joke, body, digital files
• Copies of books, journals, or videos
• The online gift economy
• Linux, Napster, freeware
• BBSs, chat rooms, web sites
• Why share in these virtual communities?
• Keeping while giving (Weiner)
• Cheap altruism (Coyne)
• Utilitarianism
• True hi-tech gift economy

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Intangible Sharing Communities

• Marker goods
• Sports fans, music fans, brand cults
• Proselytizing recruiting members
• Feeling of minority status, persecution,
  uniqueness
• iPod?

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Case in PointThe Grateful Dead

• Long known for tapers freely trading (not
  selling) concert tapes
• Evolved into digital downloading
• But in late November, 2005, GD did an about face
  told Live Music Archive to stop making it
  available
• Fan uproar caused a partial reversal
• But GD already suggested shift
• From Internet as cornucopia
• To Internet as pay-per-play jukebox

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Brand Grateful Dead

• The Dead had created an anarchy of trust, going
  not by statute but by instinct and turning fans
  into co-conspirators, spreading their music and
  buying tickets, T-shirts and official CDs to
  show their loyalty. The new approachchanges that
  relationship.The change also downgrades fans
  into the customers they were all along. It
  removesbrand value from the Deads legacy by
  reducing them to one more band with products to
  sell (Jon Pareles, The Deads Gamble Free
  Music for Sale NYT, December 3, 2005.

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Incentives to Share Tangibles

• School boys/girls sharing clothing
• Leveraged lifestyles
• Lease vs. buy car
• RealNetworks Rhapsody
• Blockbuster, Netflix
• Virtual Renting
• eBay flipping (cell phone, computer, iPod,
  sports equipment)
• Calloway
• Bag, Borrow, or Steal
• Buy, rip, sell CDs

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Other Tangible Sharing Incentives

• Family heirlooms extended self
• Sharing within the family
• Group sharing (e.g., time-share homes)
• Institutional sharinge.g.,
• Museums
• National Parks
• But, beware the tragedy of the commons

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Involuntary SharingCounterfeiting

• Unlike graffiti or vandalism in intent
• Sometimes condoned by the brand counterfeited
  (e.g., Hilfiger, Nike, Polo)
• Usually strongly opposed
• A victimless crime?
• Justifications
• Robin Hood
• Decency
• Righting the crimes of rapacious capitalism
• Those who buy are not usually in the target
  market
• Imitation may flatter
• Helping entrepreneurs in the less affluent world
• Helping consumers in the less affluent world

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Problematizing Brand Counterfeiting

• Grades of Counterfeits
• Counterfeits as Better than the real thing as
  defined by to intellectual property laws
• Ranges of counterfeits
• BeveragesPepsi, 1st Growth Bordeaux
• Designer brandsfacsimiles vs. ironic
  (Baudrillards simulacrum vs. fake or Joshua
  Glenns fake authenticity--Hermenaut)
• Motorcycles (5 of 6 Yamaha bikesRana, SSRN) or
  aircraft parts
• PharmaceuticalsViagra vs. AIDS drugs

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Conclusions

• Social desirability of sharing
• E.g., U.S. home ownership (gt 2/3)
• Why? Community, civil obedience, investment
• Why not? ID through things vs. people, Bowling
  Alone, financial security vs. social security,
  economic capital vs. social capital
• Privatization of the nuclear family radio, TV,
  car, computers, bathroom, meals, bank accounts
  credit cards
• Compensatory rise of virtual communities online
  sharing

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Conclusions

• Social desirability of renting
• Spouse
• Womb
• Soldiers
• Children
• Online sharing vs. intellectual property laws vs.
  public access dreams of free access
• Post-materialism, VS, downshifting,
  dematerializing, experience economy?
• One boom U.S. rental market storage
• Business may lead the way with the virtual
  corporation