Are Counterfeits Actually Good for Designer Brands?

Photo copyright and courtesy of zoonabar

Good news for our free-culture pro-piracy friends. According to an MIT marketing professor, Renee Richardson Gosline, fake designer goods function as “gateway” products to the real thing. According to Slate, Gosline,

found that her subjects formed attachments to their phony Vuittons and came to crave the real thing when, inevitably, they found the stitches falling apart on their cheap knockoffs. Within a couple of years, more than half of the women—many of whom had never fancied themselves consumers of $1,300 purses—abandoned their counterfeits for authentic items.

Not so fast, writes The Week. There are at least three reasons why this pro-piracy position is wrong. One, the fakes still tarnish the established designer trademark; two, piracy is still a crime, and; three, the research is bogus; most people who buy fakes will most likely never be able to afford the real thing.