Innovationpartners

Wired has produced a really cool map of what they call the world’s largest social network: organized crime. The map show different kinds of organized crime and how they interact across the globe. I love maps and have been clicking around the map having great fun.
The map also shows movement of counterfeit goods and medicine. Actually counterfeit goods come in 4^th on the list of estimated value of criminal activities ( $ 8.2 billion). My first thought when I saw the statistics was “why is funding for combatting piracy so low?” Based on these figures, the spending on combating piracy should be increased. The problem here is that you can’t just raise funds to combatting counterfeits – there is not an unlimited amount of funding available. This means that you have to redistribute your funds rather than raising them – which means that some other area will lose funding. I can almost see the headlines in the news: “Trafficking victims loose money because Louis Vuitton won’t accept fakes”. Bad story.
But how do you approach the balancing of the budget then?