My point is that "stealing is bad, period" is making a black-and-white issue out of a grey one - particularly where intellectual property is concerned. I presented the expiration of patents and copyrights as evidence that "stealing" for the public good is acknowleged as reasonable.
Maybe trademarks don't expire due to net public benefit, but as long as the knockoffs aren't being sold as genuine, if we acknowlege that the issue is grey then there's room to disagree with the OPs assessment that they're an epidemic.
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