Ethics Newsline®

VARIOUS DATELINES
The fine line between imitation and piracy has been blurred in recent months in several high-profile cases involving trademarks, intellectual property, and the fashion industry. Among the stories:

• Canada’s National Post reports that while blatant counterfeiting — copying a designer’s label and pasting it onto a cheap imitation — is clearly illegal, the situation is not always clear-cut when it comes to the lines and colors in the design of a dress. “The ethics and legalities behind a copycat — or its more pejorative synonym, a knock-off — of a creative idea are less clear, involving many shades of gray that just happen to be the hottest color in fashion right now,” writes the Posts’s Nathalie Atkinson. She notes that while there have been several legislative attempts to solve the issue, the “dynamics of creativity” remain complex.
• The online auction site eBay has announced a new initiative against online fraud. According to the New York Times, eBay has stepped back from its hands-off attitude of the past and now aggressively fights the sale of counterfeit items and has revised its feedback system to provide more information to sellers and buyers. The Times reports that the results appear promising: eBay is expected to report a 60 percent drop in the number of complaints from makers of luxury goods claming that counterfeits are being hawked on the auction site.
• The Agence France-Presse reports that executives of major companies and trade organizations are urging the U.S. government to clamp down on fake products emanating from China and Russia. The head of the National Association of Manufacturers also called on President Bush to appoint an intellectual property czar to the White House staff.