"
. With In The New York Times Magazine: Sponsored classes
SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKOFFS
Is a corporate-sponsored marketing course a real academic service, or a fake one?
A couple of years ago, the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition — a trade group whose members include fashion, software, pharmaceutical and other businesses concerned with knockoff versions of their products — decided to take its message to college campuses. Specifically, the I.A.C.C. College Outreach Campaign aimed to enlist students in spreading its message to other students. While intended as a sort of win-win situation that gives students real-life experiences and spreads the I.A.C.C.’s “fight the fakes” message, the campaign has also ended up sparking an entirely different ethical question about the sponsorship of college courses.
Read the column in today’s issue of The New York Times Magazine, or here.
.
.
Kim Fellner's book 
.
A
Reader Comments
This article got my attention because I thought it’s title, ‘Shool of Hard Knockoffs’ would have some relevance to how some streetsmart kids achieved miraculous marketing success. However after reading the first paragraph I found the subject was ‘conterfeit products’ (knock-offs) which still kept my interest, having recently spent a day with my 23 year old daughter shopping on Canal Street.
I get that high end designer products deserve to be copyrite protected, but how does that relate to the drival about trade groups giving college grants to colleges to create courses about shaping consumer behavior, and then calling the class excecises “unprofessional and unethical”. I felt this article was void of any substantiale content and was little more than a waste of ‘vitual ink’.
Ummm. Thanks for that.