By Scott Morgan, Staff Writer
SPRINGFIELD — At first glance, last Thursday morning at Columbus Farmers’ Market looked normal enough. So normal, in fact, that you might never guess a familiar incident had just transpired here.
But it had.
On the sunny Sunday morning of July 6, Police Chief Kenneth Gerber escorted 60-year-old Mount Laurel resident Howard Eisenberg and his cache of suspected illegal booty from the market grounds and into a township jail cell police said he had visited at least once before. The charge: piracy. Allegedly trafficking, 3,454 illegally copied DVDs (worth close to $65,000) and 321 illegally copied videotapes (worth about $16,000) and peddling them at bargain-basement prices at Columbus.
It was the third such bust at the market in the last year and the second involving Mr. Eisenberg in the last month. According to township police Sgt. Richard Miller, other officers had picked up Mr. Eisenberg on the same charges just three weeks prior. That time and this concluded exactly the same way, with Mr. Eisenberg posting a full $10,000 bail and being released later in the day.
For now, Mr. Eisenberg faces a court appearance, the possible loss of his vehicle and the possible loss of the $1,750 in cash that police found in his pockets at the time of the arrest, the sergeant said.
But no matter, Sgt. Miller said. He expects Mr. Eisenberg will sit quietly aside until public attention fades and then set up shop at the market again.
"It’s like cocaine to them," said Sgt. Miller of the bootleggers’ itch to sell. "These guys are addicted to this stuff."
Ongoing problem
The arrest of Howard Eisenberg highlights what Sgt. Miller admitted is an ongoing problem at Columbus Farmers’ Market. Despite repeated busts, surveillance and confrontations with legitimate vendors, the market just proves too attractive for those looking to make a quick buck on counterfeit merchandise.
Inside the marketplace, where vendors and supplies take up permanent shop space, there is little question of the merchants’ legitimacy. Here, monthly rents are due, the spaces occupied by solid vendors who have managed to exit a deep waiting list.
But as many inside vendors admit off the record, the real trouble is outside. Here is where wooden tables become the merchants’ front doors and hallways and where minivans and mini-trailers become their stock rooms. Business here is of the drive-up, set-up and walk-up variety, and it is an atmosphere, some vendors say, that acts as a magnet to what one merchant called "hit-and-run" operations.
"They’ve been trying for years to stop this," said Thomas Araco, who owns Discount Records and Tapes inside the market and sells adult videos and DVDs at a block of tables outside. "I’ve seen (Mr. Eisenberg) arrested three times. I had a fight with him once."
But no amount of conflict seems to do any good, Mr. Araco said. Eventually, he said, the bootleggers come back and the cycle begins anew.
"There’s just too much money involved," he said. "Two, three grand a day, maybe more.
"Sometimes they just walk up with a bag," he said of the bootleggers. They forgo the cars and vans, come late on Saturdays (when there is no police presence and an avalanche of open tables in the back of the lot) and empty their bags of ersatz goods onto a vacant table, where they sell them for ridiculously low prices, he said.
Mr. Araco used to sell newly released CDs inside before the counterfeit trade undercut him. Bootleggers often sell new-release titles for about $5 — less than what a legitimate vendor pays for the same titles before marking them up for retail sale. Now, Mr. Araco no longer carries new titles. Instead, he sells vintage records and oldies collections tapes because there is no question that they’re the genuine article.
"Customers ask me all the time: Do you carry bootlegs?" he said. "I tell them I don’t carry that crap."
Responsibility
When the Township Council opened the floor to public comment during its July 9 meeting, resident Bill McDaniel wasted no time in suggesting that policing Columbus Farmers’ Market is best left to someone besides the township.
"’Constantly scanning the market for fakes,’" said Mr. McDaniel, citing a printed quote by Chief Gerber, "is not the function of the Springfield Township Police Department." No one on the council disagreed. In fact, Mayor William Pettit reminded the audience, "I’ve said it before — it’s not our job to police Columbus."
But Mr. McDaniel, perhaps unwittingly, unchained the much larger question of who really is responsible for keeping Columbus Market free of bootleggers. According to Sgt. Miller, the township Police Department does help the market’s internal security officers patrol the grounds on Thursdays and Sundays, when customer traffic is at its heaviest. But the major function of this police presence is more to keep the fire lanes clear than patrol for bad guys, Sgt. Miller said.
"Trying to keep the police there would be a major mess," he said. "We look for (trouble) when we can, but most of the time we’re called there."
The final responsibility, it seems, lies with either the market itself or with the industries that ultimately stand to lose the most money on the sale of counterfeit goods. Unfortunately, according to several Columbus merchants who asked not to be identified, the sale of phony merchandise at the market goes far beyond that of CDs and DVDs and into the realms of clothing, accessories and electronics.
One agency, however, has suggested that it is the market’s responsibility to patrol for bootleggers and has even filed a lawsuit to encourage the market to do exactly that. Late last month, the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Camden County claiming that market officials have not pursued bootleggers aggressively enough. The suit is one of several outstanding suits filed internationally by the RIAA in recent months to recoup some of its estimated $4.2 billion worldwide annual losses to piracy.
According to Frank Creighton, executive vice president and director of anti-piracy at RIAA, the suit seeks damages for "literally thousands" of incidents of willful infringement of ownership laws at Columbus. If each infringement charge (each of which carries a $150,000 fine) is proved true, the resulting penalties would reach several million dollars.
For Matt McCrink, the attorney for Columbus Farmers’ Market, the suit is nonsense. From his office in West Berlin, Camden County, Monday, Mr. McCrink said the market has taken repeated steps to curb sales of bootlegged material, including an invitation to the RIAA to place its own full-time security patrol officer on the grounds. That offer, he said, was turned down.
Ultimately, Mr. McCrink said, the responsibility for policing the market comes down to who is willing to pay for it. And since the market itself makes no money on the sale of bootlegged discs (or on any other sales, for that matter), the responsibility should fall to the RIAA.
"We’re not losing millions of dollars, they are," said Mr. McCrink. "If I was losing millions of dollars, I’d think (funding a security presence at Columbus) would be worth it. They want us to do their policing for them."
Mr. Creighton said that it is not private industry’s job to police the multitude of markets around the world — which he said would be near impossible to do. He added that the RIAA has offered Columbus officials the training to help clean out bootleggers, but the market has done little with the offer.
"I want to make one thing very clear," Mr. Creighton said of the case against the market. "This is not about money, this is about deterrence."
As the economy continues to sag and the recording industry continues to suffer, he said, the agency has had to take more serious steps to combat thieves.
"We want them to know that when we offer them training (to root out pirates), we mean business," he said.
Mr. McCrink did say the market has worked with the RIAA before. The Springfield Police Department also has received training from the RIAA and the motion picture industry to identify forgeries.
Limited resources
The problem of ferreting out counterfeiters, said Mr. McCrink, goes several layers beyond the simplistic search-and-destroy approach to policing. With sophisticated home computers able to make near-flawless prints of labels and CD/DVD covers, spotting a phony disc becomes a daunting task, he said.
"The only way to know for sure is to open them," he said, and that itself would be time-consuming and expensive.
"Some of (the phony discs) are really not just homemade duplications," Mr. McCrink said. Indeed, he said, some forgeries are made on very high-tech equipment in overseas factories and shipped to underground suppliers worldwide, "shrink-wrapped and everything."
And often, the bootleggers, who know the security guards and police officers on sight, will simply bury their illegal merchandise amid genuine articles or even in trash cans until the patrols move on, he said.
In short, Mr. McCrink said, there is no easy way to stop bootleggers.
"Even the police have limited resources," he said. "What do you want them to do? Catch murderers … or play CD police at Columbus flea market?"
The major arbiter in deciding whether a disc is genuine, Mr. McCrink said, comes down to its price. But even that, he said, is fraught with problems. While a newly released CD or DVD going for $5 (compared to $15 for a legitimate CD and $25 for a legitimate DVD) might seem an obvious fraud, he said, some vendors claim they buy out overstocks and score an inventory for pennies on the dollar — a practice many honest merchants use to cut costs.
"How do you argue that?" asked Mr. McCrink. "All we can do is call the police, which we do anyway."
Hurting business
Most of last Thursday’s outdoor merchants were absent Saturday, replaced by vendors with smaller vans, smaller stock and fewer patrons. Huddled under the long roofs that shielded vendors from the sun, the collections of old sewing machines and used toys offered for sale made the place look more like a mass yard sale than an outdoor market.
There were no signs of bootleggers to the casual glance. Few merchants, in fact, even peddled music or movies, and those who did sold selections from what obviously had once comprised their own collections. It was a far different vibe than the previous Thursday’s, when bargain hunters and casual shoppers compressed into dense crowds at nearly every table.
But despite the crowds, some vendors said their livelihoods have suffered irrevocably from increased competition and, most definitely, from the presence of bootleggers.
"(People) really question whether you have a quality item," said Joe O’Neal, who, along with his wife, Elayne, vends cellular phone face plates and accessories under the name Double-O Cellular Access. "If a customer gets a fake, he might assume everything else is a fake. It’s guilt by association."
To counter the air of mistrust in his electronics items, Mr. O’Neal demonstrates their worthiness by plugging them into a portable 12-volt generator. He and Elayne do "fair" in their line of work, he said, but not as fair as when they started their business, back before the black market really settled into Columbus.
"It’s always been a small factor," Mr. O’Neal said of the bootleggers’ presence. "But in the last four, five years it has escalated. To have my reputation diminished by these (incidents with electronic pirates) doesn’t help."
The blow to credibility is but one of the many negatives traffickers of illegal goods throw into the works. There also is the matter of fairness.
Sitting on the back bumper of a commercial box truck, two vendors of women’s accessories (who asked that their names and specific merchandise not be mentioned) shook their heads at the injustice.
"I don’t mind competition, that’s good for the country," said the taller of the two men, who has been in business for more than 25 years. "But fair competition."
Both men lamented that it is difficult enough to compete in a fair market, much less have to deal with crooks who undersell the same merchandise. Who, they asked, would buy something for $15 when they could get the same thing for $5?
"It hurts the market," the tall man said.
And it hurts reputations, even among fellow merchants. A slow drag on a cigarette was followed by a word of advice from the tall man, who warned, "Don’t buy nothing electronic."
"If you’re getting a $300 pocketbook for 50 bucks," added the other man, "you know there’s something wrong."
Getting it cheaper
Without a doubt, word of bootlegged merchandise did little to stem the ocean of patrons who sorted through goods at more than 1,500 tables on Sunday. Wading through alternating waves of ’70s soul and modern country music, shoppers scanned the market for bargains (and not just on movies and music), no matter how they came across them.
"You can get a lot of things up here cheaper," said Scott Freeland of Vincentown, a regular patron of Columbus Market. Mr. Freeland clutched a plastic bag containing a pair of sunglasses with the Oakley name attached. And he was quite certain they were not the real thing.
"They’re not Oakleys, they’re faux-kleys," he said with a laugh. "But it’s cheaper."
Seventeen-year-old Kim Consolo and her 20-year-old sister, Tracy, are regular visitors to the market, too. In their possession was a collection of items picked up from a day of bargain hunting, including an imitation Luis Vuitton purse Kim picked up for $20. In a department store, the real thing would have cost her at least $200.
"We know they’re not real," said Tracy of the bags she and her sister often buy. But, as Kim reminded, the important thing is, "you can’t tell they’re fake."
Besides, Kim added, "Even if they fall apart, you’re only wasting 10 or 20 dollars."
