Counter Research Project

COUNTER was a European research project exploring the consumption of counterfeit and pirated leisure goods. It was a 24 month project running until the end of March 2010. Funded by the European Commission’s Framework 7 programme, the COUNTER research project was designed to collect data, generate knowledge and disseminate findings on the European landscape for the consumption of counterfeit consumer goods.

The research project explored:

Frequency and distribution of counterfeits
Consumer attitudes to counterfeit and pirated goods
Legal and ethical frameworks for intellectual property
Policy options for engaging with the consumers of counterfeits
The use of copyrighted goods in the creation of new cultural artefacts
Impacts of counterfeiting and control of intellectual property.

COUNTER collected data on consumer behaviour, policy development, and stakeholder engagement. Together, these allowed COUNTER’s research to integrate demand-consumption side issues with policy implications.

Further details on the organisation of COUNTER’s research is available here. The project produced a large number of publicly available research documents – these can be viewed and downloaded from the Publications (Project Deliverables) section of the website. If you have any questions about these deliverables then please use the contact form.

The COUNTER project brought together a team of European researchers from the UK, Austria, Sweden, Italy, Slovenia in order to develop a multi-disciplinary and multi-method approach to counterfeit goods and intellectual property that drew upon the strengths of economics, sociology, law, psychology, and management and information science.

By developing an innovative research framework, the project generated new policy and industry relevant knowledge and produced a research agenda which can be developed and implemented to inform future research.

The COUNTER research team was made up of the following researchers: