New high-tech solutions to piracy and counterfeiting promise to tag would-be forgers.
Pokémon cards, Microsoft software, Beanie Babies, and Olympic merchandise all have something in common: They sell so well that vast illegal enterprises thrive on faking a piece of the action. In 1995 the US-based International Anticounterfeiting Coalition estimated US companies lost more than US$200 billion and companies worldwide lost more than US$350 billion. The piracy problem has only worsened in recent years. Lew Kontnik of the anticounterfeiting consulting group Reconnaissance International says that because manufacturing equipment has become ubiquitous, "counterfeiting is exploding."
But while software can be copied bit-for-bit, the CD-ROMs used to distribute it can be labeled, like other products, to make counterfeit versions detectable. Microsoft has employed so many advanced antipiracy techniques in its Windows 2000 discs that the company claims it uses more anticounterfeiting features than any nation's currency. Among them is an edge-to-edge hologram that covers the entire back surface of the disc. The technology was pioneered by the UK-based Nimbus CD International, which used it in April 1996 for the game Treasure Quest. But increasingly, Kontnik says, the holographic label is not the only element used to deter counterfeiters. To keep ahead of forgers companies are "developing whole systems to build in a series of different identity techniques."
Will pirates build do-it-yourself hologram labs to get around today's protection? It's probably only a matter of time. However, the next generation of anti piracy tools promises to be even harder to fool. The solution lies in techniques like DNA and molecular tagging.
Professional Sports Authenticator and DNA Technologies have developed a system for marking sport memorabilia that, as the latter company's name suggests, uses DNA for product identification. A certificate is issued and a tamper-evident label is applied to the itemââ,¬"along with an invisible and nontransferable chemical marker containing synthesized DNA. The marker can be seen under an infrared laser, and an additional field test can determine if the DNA trace present is the correct one.
Vintage sports equipment isn't the only kind marked with DNA. The Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games is taking forged merchandise seriously, using, according to the official Olympic Web site, "bar codes, specially marked swing tags, holograms, laser technology, and impregnation of fabric and goods with traceable substances." It has also used the DNA Technologies anticounterfeiting scheme to mark products with the DNA of Olympic athletes.
Though DNA tags represent a new technique, they serve the same purpose as holographic tags, creating a label that is difficult to duplicate but can be verified as authentic without extensive analysis.
Gary Hale, spokesman for anticounterfeiting company Isotag, says businesses often fail to recognise the impact of counterfeiting. He describes the time the makers of a popular consumer product told him, "Our brand is the second-best seller in China."
"You must be very proud," Hale said, which brought the reply, "We don't sell in China."
Even if it were possible, eliminating product counterfeiting entirely would cost an enormous sum. But by using emerging technologiesââ,¬"from subtle packaging changes to new holographic techniques and advanced molecular markersââ,¬"manufacturers can make their merchandise so difficult to fake that would-be imitators will pick on someone else.
