Licenced brands are important in our businesses. Licenced brands like Frozen, Sesame Street, Disney and Peppa Pig.
They are licenced brands because they are licenced by the owner of the intellectual property and represent large investment in developing the licence.
The challenge is that these products can be easily copied and governments are under-resourced in detecting and stopping copyright infringement.
Some suppliers of licenced products to our channel are funding legal action to protect their interests and the interests of their partner retailers. I welcome this as I only source genuine licenced products. It angers me when I see a retailer selling a knock-off.
The photo is from a retailer near my newsagency. It took it on Saturday. Their Peppa Pig product is not licenced. The items in the photo are illegal knock-offs. What makes matters worse is that some of the items have been so poorly made that they pose a health risk in my view.
Newsagents selling licenced products need to be part of the compliance regime. We should report to our suppliers when we see retailers selling products that are not officially licenced. Such reports should include details of the outlet and photos of product. We should also report these infringements to IP Australia and the ACCC.
I’d also suggest informing staff members so they can speak to customers as appropriate.
In my own case I am letting the landlord know because any retailer selling illegal copies is a breach of the lease of just about any major landlord. I suspect the landlord could be the first to act out of the various bodies I could complain to.
I will also take it up with the group brand under which the retailer trades under. However, it’s possible they are involved.
I did try and speak with the manager of the shop. Their reprocess was that they did not speak English. True.
Taking action matters because we pay a higher price to access genuine licenced product. This is something to protect for us, for the licence owner and for the consumer who purchases Peppa Pig product believing it to be genuine.
The front page of today’s Australian Financial Review newspaper is a reminder of the importance Fairfax places on digital as a distribution channel for their content. The sticker offering 50% off a six months digital sub is stuck over news on the print edition. While I am not privy to the financials, I expect the daily print edition of the AFR to be replaced by a digital only product soon. Digital distribution of AFR type content makes sense in this faster and more connected world. Newsagents need to factor this into their business planning.
