Counterfeit

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK “A con artist story, a pop-feminist caper, a fashionable romp . . . Counterfeit is an entertaining, luxurious read—but beneath its glitz and flash, it is also a shrewd deconstruction of the American dream and the myth of the model minority. . . . Chen is up to something innovative and subversive here." — Camille Perri, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Recommended by New York Times Book Review • Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • USA Today • Time • Cosmopolitan • Today show • Harper’s Bazaar • Vogue • Good Housekeeping • Parade • New York Post • Town & Country • GMA.com • Buzzfeed • Goodreads • Oprah Daily • Popsugar • Bustle • theSkimm • The Millions • and more! For fans of Hustlers and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, the story of two Asian American women who band together to grow a counterfeit handbag scheme into a global enterprise—an incisive and glittering blend of fashion, crime, and friendship from the author of Bury What We Cannot Take and Soy Sauce for Beginners. Money can’t buy happiness… but it can buy a decent fake. Ava Wong has always played it safe. As a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son, and a beautiful home—she’s built the perfect life. But beneath this façade, Ava’s world is crumbling: her marriage is falling apart, her expensive law degree hasn’t been used in years, and her toddler’s tantrums are pushing her to the breaking point. Enter Winnie Fang, Ava’s enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. Now, twenty years later, Winnie is looking to reconnect with her old friend. But the shy, awkward girl Ava once knew has been replaced with a confident woman of the world, dripping in luxury goods, including a coveted Birkin in classic orange. The secret to her success? Winnie has developed an ingenious counterfeit scheme that involves importing near-exact replicas of luxury handbags and now she needs someone with a U.S. passport to help manage her business—someone who’d never be suspected of wrongdoing, someone like Ava. But when their spectacular success is threatened and Winnie vanishes once again, Ava is left to face the consequences. Swift, surprising, and sharply comic, Counterfeit is a stylish and feminist caper with a strong point of view and an axe to grind. Peering behind the curtain of the upscale designer storefronts and the Chinese factories where luxury goods are produced, Kirstin Chen interrogates the myth of the model minority through two unforgettable women determined to demand more from life. "If you appreciate a good caper, you’ll want to pick up Kirstin Chen’s novel . . . Fast-paced and fun, with smart commentary on the cultural differences between Asia and America." — TIME “Propulsive and captivating . . . A provocative story of fashion, friendship, and fakes (in more ways than one).” — VOGUE

Prior to the Civil War, the United States did not have a single, national currency. Counterfeiters flourished amid this anarchy, putting vast quantities of bogus bills into circulation. Their success, Mihm reveals, is more than an entertaining tale of criminal enterprise: it is the story of the rise of a country defined by freewheeling capitalism and little government control. Mihm shows how eventually the older monetary system was dismantled, along with the counterfeit economy it sustained.

The expansion of world trade has brought with it an explosive growth in counterfeit merchandise. Estimates put the world total for counterfeit products at about one half trillion dollars annually, although it is impossible to accurately determine the true size of the counterfeit market. What is known is that this illicit trade has infected nearly every industry from pharmaceuticals to aircraft parts. Software and music piracy are easy targets widely reported in the media. In 2007, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) estimated that 38% of personal computer software installed worldwide was illegal and the losses to the software industry were $48 billion worldwide. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) reported a 58% increase in the seizures of counterfeit CDs. Overall, a wide range of industries agree that there is a severe problem with the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) throughout the world, yet there have been virtually no attempts to describe all aspects of the problem. This work aims to give the most complete description of various characteristics of the IPR environment in a global context. We believe a holistic understanding of the problem must include consumer complicity to purchase counterfeit products, tactics of the counterfeiters (pirates) as well as actions (or inaction) by home and host governments, and the role of international organizations and industry alliances. This book establishes the full environmental aspects of piracy, describes successful anti-counterfeiting actions and then prescribes measures IPR owners should take to protect their intellectual property.

The book constitutes a unique combination of in-depth insights into the counterfeit market, best-practice strategies, novel management tools, and product protection technologies. It provides both the insights required to develop effective brand and product protection strategies, and the insights that are required to effectively respond to counterfeit trade. Key benefits are the unbiased analysis of the counterfeit market, the strong focus on assisting practitioners to deal with the challenge, and the high standard of research that supports the presented findings.

Counterfeit and pirated products come from many economies, with China appearing as the single largest producing market. These illegal products are frequently found in a range of industries, from luxury items (e.g. fashion apparel or deluxe watches), via intermediary products (such as machines, spare parts or chemicals) to consumer goods that have an impact on personal health and safety (such as pharmaceuticals, food and drink, medical equipment, or toys). This report assess the quantitative value, scope and trends of this illegal trade.

This unique Handbook provides multiple perspectives on the growth of illicit trade, primarily exploring counterfeits and internet piracy. It includes expert opinion on a wide range of topics including the evaluation of key global enforcement issues, government and private-sector agency initiatives to stifle illicit trade, and the evolution of piracy on the internet. The authors also assess the efficacy of anti-counterfeiting strategies such as targeted consumer campaigns, working with intermediaries in the supply chain, authentication technology, and online brand protection.

At the end of the 1970s, Chinese merchandise moved to Brazil via Paraguay, forming an on-the-margins-of-the-law trade chain involving the production, distribution, and consumption of cheap goods. Economic changes in the twenty-first century, including the enforcement of intellectual property rights and the growing importance of emerging economies, have had a dramatic effect on how this chain works, criminalizing and dismantling a trade system that had previously functioned in an organized form and stimulated the circulation of goods, money, and people at transnational levels. This book analyses how exchange networks that produced, distributed, and sold cheap manufactured products animated a huge and vibrant system from China to Brazil, examining the process at global, national, and local levels. From a global perspective, intellectual property is a powerful discourse that governs the world system by framing the notion of piracy as a criminal activity. But at the national level, how do nation-states resist and/or endorse, interpret, and apply a global perspective? And what effect does that have on how ordinary people organize their lives around this system? Interweaving discourse on transnational traders and producers, national projects, and international institutions, Counterfeit Itineraries in the Global South presents low-income traders not as passive victims of globalization, but as active actors in the distribution of cheap goods across borders in the Global South. Based on fifteen years of ethnographic field work in China and Brazil, Counterfeit Itineraries in the Global South will be of interest to scholars of economic anthropology, development studies, political economy, Latin America studies, Chinese studies, and socio-legal studies.

'THE HARD-BITTEN CHAMPION OF BRITISH HEROIC FANTASY' - Joe Abercrombie 'HEROISM AND HEARTBREAK . . . GEMMELL IS ADRENALINE WITH SOUL' - Brent Weeks Legend is the classic Drenai novel from the British master of heroic fantasy, a powerful tale of courage and sacrifice in the face of overwhelming odds. His name is Druss The stories of his life are told everywhere. But the grizzled Drenai veteran has spurned a life of fame and fortune and retreated to the solitude of his mountain lair. The fortress is Dros Delnoch And it is the only route through the mountains for the invading army of the Nadir. The fortress was once the Drenai's greatest stronghold - now it will be their final battleground. And Druss their last hope. Novels by David Gemmell The Drenai series Legend The King Beyond the Gate Waylander Quest For Lost Heroes Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend Jon Shannow series Wolf in Shadow The Last Guardian Bloodstone Stones of Power Ghost King Last Sword of Power Hawk Queen series Ironhand's Daughter The Hawk Eternal Ancient Greece novels Lion of Macedon Dark Prince Other novels Knights of Dark Renown Morningstar