Owen Schumacher is a gifted Dutch comedian and impersonator. He has made a documentary series about what people’s perceptions are of real and fake. The third episode of the documentary is on brands, genuine and fake. Mr Schumacher, like yours truly, studied intellectual property law at the Institute for Information Law (IViR) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. So it is only natural to start his journey into the world of trademark counterfeits at this renowned institute.
Unfortunately he did not interview anybody at the institute and only showed some examples of counterfeits. In the documentary Schumacher is going to Shanghai to Holland Village which has many replicas of Dutch buildings (at first sight the houses that were shown seemed to be already in the public domain, so there is no copyright issue here). Then Windows of the World 世界之窗 in Shenzhen was shown, where many of the famous buildings and natural scenery of the world was copied on a miniature scale. Mr. Schumacher visited Museum Plagiarius in Solingen, Germany together with Christian Rommel, an entrepreneur who build up a collection of counterfeit tissue paper, all variations on the Tempo brand. He also went to Canton Road in Tsim Sha Tsui (TST), Hong Kong to see the megastores of luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci, where people have to queue to get in. Mr. Schumacher said that only the next street you can buy fake versions of these brands. However, then you saw Mr Schumacher walking at the Ladies’ Market in Mong Kok, which is not located on the next street but you must take the MTR (metro) from TST, via Yau Ma Tei and Jordan to Mong Kok. Then he buys himself a fake Rolex watch, and engages in participatory journalism.
Also Mr Schumacher stated that there is no place on earth where so many counterfeits are sold. This claim is probably not true. What is unquestionably true is that the place is well known and frequented by foreign tourists.
For IP Dragon readers, many issues that have been covered extensively are also dealt by the documentary, such as Ikea, see here and here, and Apple stores copycats, here and here, and Shan Zhai culture, see here, here and here is explained by architect Fei Wang. Since the interviews were done in English and the Dutch voice-over is not adding so much information, it is worth to watch to watch it even though one does not master the Dutch language. See Nep! (which means fake in Dutch) broadcast by NTR here.