ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that corporate actors are responsible for the socially harmful effects of the global counterfeiting problem. The development of the idea of Intellectual Property Crime (IPC) has cemented the use of the language of counterfeiting beyond its more traditional use in law, where it referred to the unlawful copying of banknotes. The chapter identifies 'positive' externalities in which IPC is not experienced by consumers as a social harm—the very high level of software piracy in the global survey mentioned, for instance, will include many happy users of pirated software who are pleased to have a product that is on all measures identical to the original other than being unauthorised. Still, the internalised corporate costs and positive externalities of IPC should not divert analysis from the negative externalities we have identified, which remain a distinctive corporate contribution to 'crime as pollution' and to contemporary global insecurity.
