27 Fake Apple Stores Discovered In China

vansau

Mortician of Love
May 25, 2010
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27 Fake Apple Stores Discovered In China



That's 27 fake stores so far. The number's actually expected to grow.

Back in May, Steve Ballmer claimed that <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.287376-Piracy-Steals-95-of-Microsofts-Revenue-in-China>piracy robbed Microsoft of 95% of its revenue in the country. Well, it turns out that Apple's sorta having the same problem: Fake Apple Stores are cropping up all over the place.

Last month, Web surfers were surprised to learn that fake Apple Stores were starting to pop up over in China. Reports were coming in that at least five convincingly fake Apple Stores could be found in the city of Kunming. Not only did they look like the real thing, but a lot of the employees actually believed they were working for Apple.

At first, Apple didn't appear all that concerned about these shops. After all, they were selling official Apple merchandise, so (theoretically) the company was receiving the profits from selling these goods to the stores. That said, two of the shops were shut down because the owners didn't have business licenses.

When news of the fake stores reached Apple's headquarters in Shanghai, complaints started being made to Kunming authorities. Basically, Apple's primary problem with he stores was that they were using official Apple logos without permission, making them look like the real deal. An investigation was launched by officials on August 2nd, and "a further 22 store were found to be selling either official or counterfeit Apple products under the guise of being an official store."

Exactly how these stores will be dealt with remains to be seen. Technically, they should be shut down, as China has laws in place that protect trademarks and prohibits companies from copying "the look and feel" of other company stores.

However, as Reuters points out, "In May, China was listed for the seventh year by the U.S. Trade Representative's office as a country with one of the worst records for preventing copyright theft."

Source: Geek

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Atmos Duality

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Mar 3, 2010
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And people give me funny looks when I say China has a "Robber Economy".
*shrugs*
This sort of business doesn't even surprise me anymore.
 

twistedheat15

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Sep 29, 2010
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Oh China~ You and your bootlegging, it's no wonder you can afford to give the rest of the world money to borrow~
 

Uber Waddles

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May 13, 2010
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What a fucking joke. Really wish the Chinese government would step in and stop all these flagrant bootleg opperations.

Atleast these fake apple stores are selling REAL apple products. Or so it assumes. Wouldnt suprise me if thats not the truth. But seriously, how can any first world country let people get away with things like this?
 

chuckey

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Oct 9, 2010
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I'm not too surprised by this. China has made many knock offs of many products: Wii, Ds, other various electronics, etc. As long as they are selling actual Apple products, has employees who know what they are talking about, and gives some of the profit back to apple then i see no problem. The only thing I would suggest is to make it a law to have a business license and then have cops come by every once in a while to see if they have a license and if it's up to date.
 

Booze Zombie

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Dec 8, 2007
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Atmos Duality said:
And people give me funny looks when I say China has a "Robber Economy".
*shrugs*
This sort of business doesn't even surprise me anymore.
Well, that's the ultimate form of capitalism. Everyone's busy making money, doesn't matter how so long as the cogs keep turning.
 

FungiGamer

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Apr 23, 2008
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vansau said:
However, as Reuters points out, "In May, China was listed for the seventh year by the U.S. Trade Representative's office as a country with one of the worst records for preventing copyright theft."
Reminds me so much of Final Combat, a Chinese game that literally stole not just the feel of Team Fortress 2 but the literal models of Valve's characters and weapons as well, along with a community made map
 

FogHornG36

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Jan 29, 2011
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Frozen Donkey Wheel2 said:
Didn't Feed Dump talk about this, like, two weeks ago?
Hipster Feed dump is ahead of the curve.

I think for all the money US businesses have lost from china's piracy/bootlegging we should take off the debt that we borrowed from them.
 

HerbertTheHamster

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Apr 6, 2009
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Well of course there are no such capitalist ideas as "copyright" in The Glorious Democratic People's Central Committee of China!
 

unacomn

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Mar 3, 2008
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China has been producing fake eggs(not a joke), so it make sense that fake Apples would be easy as fake pie for them.
 

FalloutJack

Bah weep grah nah neep ninny bom
Nov 20, 2008
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Again. China taking over the U.S.? Not happening. Get your OWN house in order first.
 

Braedan

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Sep 14, 2010
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Why is it every time I hear news about China its either HILARIOUS, or TERRIFYING?
 

Not G. Ivingname

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Nov 18, 2009
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They had a fake Disneyland up for DECADES (only closed in 2007) how does Apple expect all the stores to be shut down?
 

Shadow-Phoenix

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Mar 22, 2010
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Uber Waddles said:
What a fucking joke. Really wish the Chinese government would step in and stop all these flagrant bootleg opperations.

Atleast these fake apple stores are selling REAL apple products. Or so it assumes. Wouldnt suprise me if thats not the truth. But seriously, how can any first world country let people get away with things like this?
Quite simple really China makes a lot of our products when you see anything with the label "made in China" then they made it and since they make most of our products because of outsourcing and since they make our stuff they are ale to pirate and create "fake" products and claim on them and the reason we can't do anything about it is mainly like "biting the hand that feeds you", if we told them to knock off all that then they could just as easily decline in them making our products it's as simple as that.