Scavenger Hunt

Harvey left town for the weekend and left his International Business course to search the town looking for violations of intellectual property rights.  As you can see from the video below, the students had no difficulties finding them.  The class decided the only proper way to go about looking for them was to compete, and boys vs. girls seems to be the only way to do so.  The teams were uneven, so I got pegged to be a part of the boys' team.  I can only assume the girls did their part of the assignment too, but I wasn't there for any of it.  Here's how it all went down:

Several students commented on the assignment.  Below are a few excerpts from their journals and blogs:


"Intellectual property rights and licensing violations have become an apparent problem for many companies, particularly within Mexico. Several years ago, it was estimated that firms from the United States lost US $162.4 in Mexico just from software piracy. Yesterday, our class went on a scavenger hunt to find at least 20 intellectual property rights violations. Overall, the task took less than an hour, and we had only been within about a three block radius. These violations ranged from toys, clothing, accessories, and movies. If it is such an apparent issue, then why is nothing being done about it?" --Gwen

"I kind of have mixed feelings about the whole international law implications of our scavenger hunt. On the one hand, I side with the U.S. - companies have worked hard and spent tons of money on building the reputation of their brands and inventing new technologies and they deserve to make a profit off of it. It's not fair for them to put in all the work just for someone else to copy it and make the profit instead. At the same time, though, I can see Mexico's and other poorer countries' side of the argument. Most of the population in those countries cannot afford the price of brand name products, so is it fair that they should have to do without? No it's not fair. But is it fair that they rip off other brands? Most Mexicans feel that way, I fear, although I cannot say that I completely sympathize either way in this argument. The economic and cultural differences between countries only make any progress toward any kind of international custom on this matter harder to obtain." --Laura