walby2

FWIW the Jets aren't moving the farm to Thunder Bay until the red tape clears around that arena project. They have two more years on the rock, but after that, there's an excellent chance the Moose may return until something more permanent makes its presence known

That would be weird if they came back to Winnipeg. The Moose had strong support by AHL standards, but a lot of that was attributable to the fact that it was the top game in town at the time. The 6,500-ish crowds that they used to get would probably end up half as large, at best, if the Moose came back to Winnipeg. Obviously a strike/lockout situation would be totally different, but that isn't in the offing at all.

I guess it only makes sense in the context of Winnipeg being an interim parking lot for the team for one or two seasons tops while the new TB rink gets built.

I've seen an insane amount of pictures today on FB and Twitter that just leave me shaking my head and I don't have the heart to tell people either. It really is a shame.

Are the people who buy this stuff typically under the impression that it's legit? Given how much of it you see around, I'm guessing that many if not most of the people who buy this stuff must think they just scored a really good deal on a legit jersey as opposed to having knowingly bought a bootleg.

So justifying IP theft?

There are good reasons not to buy knockoff jerseys (the quality of said product being #1), but potentially infringing on the legal rights of Nike, Reebok or their subsidiaries is near the bottom of that list.

Strickland says the Coyotes are staying put no matter the result of the vote tomorrow.

https://twitter.com/...686847086342144

Not sure I believe it. If the league lets its bluff get called, they'll never get to bully a municipality into an arena deal again.

o rly?

Speaking personally, I am annoyed that this embarrassing chitshow is coming to an end just as I have planned a trip to Phoenix for the first time this fall, thereby depriving me of the chance to at least get dirt cheap tickets to a NHL game next season.

Screw you, Coyotes.

Absolutely. With the ease of iTunes and the low pricepoint, why wouldn't I pay for music? Aside from the obvious theft issues.

Note that the prices for music didn't come down until the recording industry started feeling the heat on their absurd prices with the rise of file sharing ($22 for a 25 cent CD? Really?).

Hopefully the same thing will happen with the absurd prices for jerseys soon enough as the jersey makers feel the heat on their own absurd prices with the rise of offshore counterfeit manufacturing.

This photo appeared in the Sun media series on the 40th anniversary of the World Hockey Association... I have to admit it caught me a little off guard.

^ Just for the sake of clarity, I agree completely. As far as the NHL is concerned, replicas of today look like the authentics of 1992.

I certainly don't recall seeing it the 1990s, but then again, back then replicas were of higher quality and priced reasonably. Authentic were pricy (or so we thought), but there would have been no reason to get a counterfeit when you could get a decent replica. And of course the prevalence of the internet was not what it is.

I feel like I started really noticing it in the mid 2000s and anything I saw before then I probably chalked up to "replica quality downgrade"; I was naive that this could occur.

I want to say it's been the last three years or so that the number of fakes have outpaced the number of officially-licensed products at games.

No surprise that the rise of fakes coincided with the dramatic price increases in authentics. When I was a kid in the early/mid 90s, you could get a NHL replica (admittedly not as good as the ones you can buy today) for about $50. Authentics were about $125. Now it's more than double that. Has polyester gone up that much in price over 15 years?

What's more, the old jerseys were made in Canada with pricy unionized labour. Now Chinese children make them for peanuts. Yet the price has doubled. I guess all that R&D costs big money.

Vis-a-vis the history of the market, when do ya'll first remember seeing China reproductions? For me, I'm thinking Spring 2004 when I bought a Jimmy Smith Jaguars tackle twill jersey off of Ebay. But I didn't have it long enough or can't remember too much about it to certify that it was a repro, though I'm pretty sure it was. I then got an Artest jersey a year later (Palace brawl era) off Ebay which I think was China. I know for sure my first repro was in January 2007 - Reggie Bush Saints jersey.

I saw my first known fakes during my first trip to China in 2002. Then as now they varied wildly in quality. The only fake jerseys you'd ever see people wearing at the time were teenage boys in soccer jerseys - usually either EPL or international kits. Those ones were typically well done and resembled the real thing, presumably because people actually knew what they were supposed to look like. The markets I frequented didn't have many jerseys from the North American leagues and the few that they did have were absolutely horrendous. The NHL jerseys could only have been made by people who had never actually seen a real hockey jersey before.

The fakes started popping up around home much later than in other cities, mainly because there really weren't any available for the home teams (CFL/AHL). With the Jets being back in Winnipeg the fakes are abundant, and I've even seen a few at CFL games lately (although I understand they've been common in Saskatchewan for a few years now).

You do make a good point, however, if you dropped the prices of jerseys, the amount of fakes would go down dramatically. Would there still be people wearing fakes? Of course, but there will be far less of them.

Exactly. The IP rights crowd is 100% dead on right when it comes to the law. However, the law and reality are two different things... after all, if they weren't, couldn't you shut down the drug trade by reminding organized crime elements that they are actually in violation of various statutes pertaining to controlled substances?

The world doesn't work that way. Economics is the REAL law that affects how people behave in this situation. It's clear that manufacturers are hoping to make this problem go away, but of course the higher and higher their prices get the more incentive there is for counterfeiters to produce fakes and for consumers to buy them. One of three things will likely happen here: the Nikes and Reeboks of the world will have to really get good at persuading governments to clamp down on this activity far harder than they have been up to now, the big licensees will have to reduce their prices to wipe out the appeal of fakes to consumers, or the licensees will lose more and more market share to the counterfeiters.

so dont buy a jersey....? what a silly response. Obviously, i'm not buying a jersey, I'm buying a knock off LOL j/k

sometimes you want a little something more then a t-shirt and this provides that option. I'm not worried about it being exacting in design. Its a waste of time to worry about something so trivial.

But again, whats your point ? what are you going to do about it ? who cares if you do ? you posted a picture and typed your "it sucks " diatribe...now what ?

What are you going to do about it ? some people like fakes, some dont. The internet makes mail order 10 million times easier then in the past. Thats all there is to it.

i'm not mocking or trolling anyone here, We are all uniform history enthusiasts. Whats next? another picture of a off center number and your mockery of it ? thrilling....

The thinking appears to be that if enough people mock and castigate counterfeit jerseys in a nasty "Mean Girls" way, that the makers and buyers of said products will change their ways and respect American intellectual property laws.

I'm sure it will work as well as the recording industry's anti-piracy efforts. At first they refused to change their business model too...

^ Apart from the issues with the accuracy of the logo, it looks like it was photoshopped into the jersey. I have my doubts as to whether the product is exactly like what is shown in the picture. Whether the actual thing is better or worse than what is shown, who knows.

Wrong number font for one thing. Also, I think the "z" used to have angles on the top right and bottom left.

The issues are not really all that subtle. To wit:

Looks like the jersey above just uses an italic Times New Roman!

I see that some sites are starting to sell fake CFL jerseys:

http://www.jerseystock88.com/products/Saskatchewan-Roughriders--s574_p1.html

There are others as well. Saskatchewan seems to be the most commonly offered team on Chinese websites, probably because their merch sells in NHL-like volumes across Canada.

However, unlike NHL jerseys which are a dime a dozen, I have never seen a fake CFL jersey in the wild. Are these things actually for real? Anyone seen them out there?

O rly?

LOL

Where was quality control on that one?

But srsly, when I've visited markets in China, any reasonable facsimiles of NHL jerseys without glaring errors have jumped out at me, whereas the soccer kits are usually well done. In my experience, at least.

honestly i've gotten some knockoff soccer jerseys on ebay and you can't tell the difference between those and actual replicas. Not saying all knockoffs are that good but in my experience they've looked really good.

In my experience the knockoff soccer jerseys are generally of a much higher quality than the ones for US leagues. I presume this is because people in China are familiar with soccer and will occasionally see the real thing in shops and on the streets, whereas you would never see a Calgary Flames jersey anywhere in China (unless someone from Calgary happened to be on vacation). From being in China I can tell you that soccer knockoffs are commonly seen on young guys whereas I would imagine 99.99% of fake NHL jerseys are exported.

In other words, an upside down Arsenal crest would never go unnoticed.

And a fantastic article about knockoffs by Jeff at LeafsHQ

http://leafshq.com/2012/06/29/your-fake-jersey-is-awful/

The part where he talks about the horrors of Chinese sweatshops is a good point. Seeing that most Chinese factories would, by North American standards at least, be considered sweatshops, I trust that Jeff at LeafsHQ has thrown out his phone and anything he has that was acquired at a mall or big-box store seeing that those things were most likely made in a Chinese sweatshop too.

Seriously, anyone who thinks that licensed sports merchandise is made by happy unionized Chinese employees working 37.5 hour weeks with regular coffee breaks is downright deluded.

If you're that concerned about sweatshops, there is an awful lot of stuff you'll have to give up besides counterfeit jerseys...

At least if it was a #49 Tampa Gretzky jerseys he's be close. I knew a guy in Junior High that had a Gretzky Wings jersey.

One half of the highest-scoring pair of brothers in NHL history!

(That's 2857 for Wayner, and 4 for Brent.)

Despite all of the advances in Chinese manufacturing technology, there is something about the simple American block font that just eludes them. Seriously, is it THAT hard?

...but notwithstanding the LOL-inducing jerseys posted here, a lot of the websites linked to from here manage to produce replicas that appear bang-on to about 99% of the sports-watching population.

Congratulations on supporting: IP theft, unsafe working conditions, a non living wage and the loss of American jobs. Nice example you're setting for your students.

Ever shopped at a mall or a big box store? If so, you have without doubt supported at least three of the four things that you mentioned above.

Here are some funny ones I found:

Byfuglien never played for the IceCaps and it also has the NHL shield on the neck insert.

This is the first AHL fake I've seen. I wonder why they put Byfuglien's name and number on the jersey, though? Why not someone who has actually played there?

These Chinese fake manufacturers need to hire me as their hockey consultant to nip these things in the bud

Re: the Bruins jerseys above

Leaving aside the various issues regarding the sale of counterfeit jerseys for a moment, I will say how surprised I am that the counterfeiters have such a hard time getting the details right. Considering what a big business fake jerseys seem to be, you'd think they could come up with a more accurate copy.

Clearly it isn't a legal issue.

Heh heh heh. Good luck with that.

Let me repeat for clarity: the problem will not be solved through legal means.

66 pages of self-righteous moralizing later, so many posters fail to grasp that this is an economic LEGAL issue. Go ahead and charge an exorbitant amount for an easily duplicated product, and don't be surprised when the counterfeits proliferate.

FYP

Nice try, but the problem will not be solved through legal means. That will only happen through economics. Either prices for authentics drop or demand fizzles for sports jerseys across the board - both scenarios would deprive the counterfeiters of their market.

No court in the world has the power to strike down the basic laws of economics. It's that simple. You can cast aspersions on counterfeit buyers as much as you want, but it isn't going to stop anything. It's simple economics at work.