Spot the Fashion Victim(s): The Importance of Rethinking Harm Within the Context of Fashion Counterfeiting

Abstract

The study of fashion counterfeiting (as with many other forms of intellectual property crime) causes particular difficulties when constrained within traditional criminological boundaries—not least because of its precarious status as a topic suitable for inclusion when discussing crime and criminality. Rather than focusing on debating the legal or illegal status of copying itself in relation to criminal law, this chapter focuses on exploring the harms, victimisation and crimes associated with counterfeit criminal markets and argues that framing counterfeiting as a ‘crime’ issue is limiting and problematic. This is not to ignore the real harms of many of the criminal acts (Hall and Winlow in Revitalizing Criminological Theory: Towards a New Ultra—Realism, Routledge, London, 2015), but argues we need to encapsulate an approach which recognises fully the harms associated with counterfeiting. In order to do so, the inherently harmful nature of the global fashion industry must be reconsidered within a critical discussion around its relationship with the illegitimate counterfeit market.