NYC Comptroller Calls for Crackdown on “Knock Off” Counterfeiting
In a New York Times article (November 23, 2004), New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. decried the proliferation of hawkers selling counterfeit brand-name items, from Fendi handbags and replica Rolex watches to pirated DVDs. Thompson estimated that more than $23 billion in counterfeit goods are sold in New York City each year, resulting in an estimated tax loss to the city of some $1 billion.

This situation is colorfully chronicled in KNOCK OFF: REVENGE ON THE LOGO, which takes us on a journey up the world's longest shopping strip, Broadway in New York City, a veritable meridian of counterfeit selling. This provocataive documentary juxtaposes the deified position brand-name logos occupy in our consumer culture with the lives of sweatshop workers who cannot afford the items they create.