While Nehru Place has maintained its place under the sun, three more markets have made it to the US’ 2013 list of out-of-cycle notorious markets review. The review report, published this week, lists out online and physical markets across the world that sell counterfeit products. Apart from Delhi’s Nehru Place, also figuring in the list are Manish Market and Lamington Road market from Mumbai, Chenoy trade centre and ‘HongKong Bazaar’ from Hyderabad, and Gaffar market from Delhi.

Read the report attached below
 
The list has removed Urdu Bazaar in Pakistan and piracy websites such as Isohunt.com, gougou.com, warez-bb.org and paipai.com thanks to their efforts to address piracy. The report however does not list legal violations, as its disclaimer says, nor does it reflect the US government’s analysis of the general intellectual property rights (IPR) protection and enforcement climate in the country concerned.
 
Commenting on the pirating environment in the world, the report does indicate that the incidence of piracy goes beyond underdeveloped and developing countries. While the domain names of offending websites have been registered in Sweden (piratebay), the Netherlands and Switzerland (zamund.net), physical markets violating IPR are present in Indonesia, China and Europe.
 
All kinds of products in various sectors such as electronics, clothing, hardware, music, movies and shoes are available for counterfeiting. However, markets in India and to an extent China deal with a high amount of counterfeit electronics products. Nehru Place is an established market where people can buy everything related to computers at less than half the market price. ‘Spare parts’, as one calls them in Delhi, are easily available here for any computer or laptop.
 
Gaffar market, which has featured in the latest list, is also a hotspot for mobile phones of all kinds. Counterfeit mobile phones at reduced prices are sold along with real ones available at market prices. It is also a hub for clothes and shoes as well as LCD and LED televisions.
 
Hong Kong Bazaar in Hyderabad and Manish Market and Lamington Road are also popular for electronic hardware and software and pirated CDs. The items sold in these places are sourced from China and Thailand.
 
Though the Indian government loses million of dollars in revenue every year because of such markets, there is hardly any effort to streamline imports in India. The US report now has put these markets under its list that “identifies marketplaces that have been the subject of enforcement actions or that may merit further investigation for possible IPR infringements”.
 
Taking measures to reduce counterfeiting and piracy would not only save the government large sums in revenue but also bring down the prices for such products, which is the reason why people flock to these markets in the first place.