Consumers & Communities

Consumers benefit from intellectual property.  Being able to derive full economic benefit from IP rights ensures that creators and content providers can invest in new and existing goods and services to be enjoyed and provides assurance to consumers that what they are being oraccessing  is legal and safe.

There are a growing number of initiatives aimed at ensuring that consumers know where they can access legitimate goods and products. You can discover the wealth of legal online digital services available for films & television, music, books, games and sports from www.thecontentmap.com.

If you want to find out where you can buy genuine brand products online or are uncertain whether a sites is legitimate or not, visit https://www.brand-i.org/

Intellectual property laws in the UK has helped ensure that we are the world-leader in the number of digital music services, and that we have one of the most advanced digital TV and radio markets in the world. The value and security provided to businesses  from intellectual property lays the path to new investment, which in turn offers consumers greater choice.

Goods and services that infringe intellectual property laws can be damaging and dangerous to consumers.  A 2010 report showed that 41% of people that that had downloaded content from illegal fileshare sites had downloaded spyware, 39% had downloaded a virus or trojan, and 32% had downloaded unwanted explicit content.

Additionally, consumers are at increasingly high risk of harm from fake goods, both physically through the sale of dangerous products and financially by paying for shoddy, substandard items, with no retailer’s exchange policy or manufacturer’s guarantee.  The fakers invest very little in their products and, through clever marketing and pricing, make a huge profit.  There are no research and development costs, no compliance with quality and safety standards, no advertising or retail costs, and of course, no taxes to be paid. 

Alliance member, the Anti-Counterfeiting Group (ACG) has uncovered examples of fake goods on sale which include:

• flammable children’s clothing,
• fake mobile phones and accessories,
• fake alcohol and cigarettes containing noxious and harmful substances,
• fake appliance batteries which have exploded under testing conditions,
• fake electric drills,
• fake disposable razors that have caused extensive skin damage,

And the impact such goods have go even further than the individual consumers, as they help to fund organised crime and anti-social behaviour in our local communities with the sale of fake goods in towns up and down the UK a very visible reminder of the organised criminal activity that exists.  By allowing it to go unchecked, a dangerous message is being sent, not only to the criminals involved, but also to the public and particularly to children – a message that counterfeiting and copyright theft is acceptable and is a ‘victimless’ crime. It is not. It allows criminals to exert control over local markets, puts consumers in harm’s way, damages the UK economy, and deprives entrepreneurs of a return on their investment and reward for risk taking. 

The Alliance has been working with the Real Deal Markets Campaign and other partners to help tackle the problem of IP-crime in communities. The Real Deal campaign has recently signed its 200th market, ensuring that consumers can feel secure in the knowledge that they are legitimately supporting jobs and businesses in their communities.