Famous Brand Rip-offs

The brand name of the South African window film company Klingshield has been built over the last 40 years through blood, sweat and tears and has become a household name. Some years ago a window tinting company opened in Botswana and ripped off the Klingshield Window Tinting Company name and look and even uses the same type face in their logo!


This fraudulent act has upset Leon Levy, the founder of Klingshield in South
Africa and has put pressure on the unethical operator in Botswana to
rename his window film business. The operator removed his web site off
the internet but is still utilizing the name hoping not to be noticed by the originator of the brand.


Klingshield will never give in as it is unhappy that their brand name has
been hijacked and at the end of the day every dog will have his day.



In these modern times the world has become a very small place with the
extensive use of the internet and nowhere to hide. Copy cats are being
exposed world wide as they try to duplicate famous brand products and
capitalize on other entrepreneurs hard work and blood, sweat and tears.


Much debate has been publicised over the years about fake products
being sold over the Internet . Big brands have taken whatever action
that was available to them to try to stop this illegal practise.
Unfortunately it is like a cancer and there is absolutely no cure . This problem
cannot be ignored and affected companies are trying everything
possible to try to reduce this deadly disease and millons of dollars are
being spent to try and stamp out these practises.


Industry watch dogs are being formed as well as a special association
established by various industries to try to combat these fraud
practices world wide. Police forces and customs departments are
involved in thousand of operations around the world. Fake goods are
found daily and destroyed by government authorities. Cabinet Ministers
from most countries meet on a regular basis to consult and work out ways
to try to reduce these illegal activities .


These fake activities have been going on for decades especially in the
movie industry, where they are known as film pirates. This problem has increased because of web sites offering free music and movies. Many sites have been closed by law courts all over the world to try to stamp out these
rip-off companies


Leading newspapers around the world are also up in arms as their
efforts on gathering content for their readers are being utilized by
famous Internet content companies. There is much debate on this
subject at present and content companies and news gatherers are at
loggerheads as to the fairness of this practice .Newspapers argue
that they do all the work, pay all the expenses and at the end of the day
companies like Google rip off their content.


This brings us to another interesting subject of duplicated content practice which Google does not favor in the algorithm calculation. Is this
not a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Surely what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Google favour fresh original content and don't like
copy cats.


The concept of copy is also a very interesting one as nobody is born
with ideas and knowledge and everybody learns in life to copy their
teachers,mentors, their parents and in reality everybody and
everything is being copied from the original inventor or creator. There
can only be one creator and we all copy and follow our creator of our
understanding.


Getting back to famous brand rip offs there has been lots of publicity
on fake Apple stores popping up in China. These stores are fitted out
to look identically the same as the land mark stores established by
Apple in all major cities world wide.


First there were fake Chinese apple stores, now there are counterfeit
like stores in the same city in Kunning in the south west corner of
China. This area seems to be the world capital of knock off stores .
Apple recently found five counterfeit versions of its stores as
reported by Reuters.


The fake Ikea stores at least call themselves Furniture 11 and is 1000
mt of a four story building which is the exact replica of the
Swedish brand stores. These new knock-off stores are established to look
feel and service customers in the same way as the western concept
stores, pirating the complete brand experience.



American bloggers are exposing these fake stores on the Internet with
the inclusion of full blown up pictures of these copy cats.


The problem with these rip off stores is that they not only look
identical but they also trade in counterfeit products pushing
unreliable cheap products, giving the original brands a bad name in the
the market place.


In the fake Apple stores the staff wear the corporate Apple clothing
creating the impression of an original Applestore.


Recent reports rumour that some of these store have been closed by the
Chinese authorities.




For more interesting stories on the subject matter and other interesting articles on safety window film and Car Window Tinting please consult
our website under the articles page www.klingshield.co.za.