By Van Cox, Special Contributor, Beckett Racing

Here's a question to ponder: Would you knowingly help someone steal from your favorite driver?

If you've ever bought even a single piece of unlicensed merchandise, you did exactly that, whether you realized it or not. The person who sold that item was breaking the law, and you were his accomplice.

The production and sale of all types of bootleg merchandise — not just sports — has exploded into what some experts estimate to be a $500 billion annual worldwide epidemic.

"Racing loses tens of millions of dollars to counterfeiting each year," says Mark Dyer, NASCAR's Vice President of Licensing. "It's stealing, plain and simple."

It's the driver's intellectual property at stake. A driver's fame is what makes his collectibles and souvenirs marketable.

"These drivers and teams are the ones who put on the show every weekend to make NASCAR the greatest form of racing in the world," Dyer notes. "They are entitled to every penny of licensed royalties they have coming. We take the proliferation of unlicensed merchandise very seriously, and we've stepped up our enforcement efforts as a result."

Earlier this year, NASCAR implemented a NASCAR hologram program for its licensees designed to ensure fans that the NASCAR merchandise purchased is authentic. The initiative requires all manufacturers of NASCAR-licensed merchandise to incorporate the specially-designed hologram onto all packaging and hang tags.

"We see the hologram program as an invaluable tool over the long term," says Dyer. "It has worked extremely well in other sports. That is just one of the strategies we're employing. We recognize that fighting counterfeiting is a never-ending battle. But we're committed to it, and we definitely think we're putting a big dent in it."

CLEANING UP THE MARKET Efforts to clean up the market have been most visible trackside. Virtually all speedways —especially those owned by International Speedway Corporation — have waged all-out war on vendors selling unauthorized goods during race weeks. At the sprawling grounds of Talladega in April, for instance, a round-up netted more than $160,000 in bootleg merchandise.

"ISC launched an initiative several years ago whereby it works closely with race teams and investigators to make sweeps during race weeks," says Dave Alpern, Vice president of Marketing for Joe Gibbs Racing. "As part of that program, we have a standing court order that allows us to seize unlicensed merchandise on the spot. Hundreds of thousands of items have been confiscated trackside over the past four or five seasons. It's a very strong program that would be hard for one team to do alone. But with the a lot of teams working in concert with ISC, we've been very successful."

In a day and age where everything revolves around the worldwide web, many scammers are turning to Internet auctions sites as a means of unloading their bootleg products. Several years ago, eBay launched the Verified Owners Rights (VeRO) Program to protect the interests of intellectual property (copyrights, trademarks) owners. The auction site immediately removes unlicensed items once an authorized representative of the rights owner properly reports the infringement. VeRO Program participants may identify and request removal of allegedly infringing auction listings.

"We've been able to remove quite a bit unauthorized product through VeRO," says Alpern. "Sometimes, when you see an unlicensed item on the auction block, you can do a little investigating and back your way into a much bigger operation than just the person who is offering it for sale. You find his source."

BUSTED! If you're a counterfeiter, Wayne Grooms would like to meet you. And chances are, he will. Grooms owns Blazer Investigations, a detective agency retained by several of NASCAR's top teams to track down those engaged in the piracy of intellectual property. Grooms has been chasing counterfeiters for more than 20 years, and he's good at what he does. Some of his most significant busts have involved NASCAR memorabilia.

"We did a seizure in Lynchburg, Va., last fall and confiscated $1.2 million in merchandise," he notes. "Over 75 percent was NASCAR related. We seized $1.8 million worth of cell phone accessories during a raid in California late last year."

Another major bust shut down an interstate ring that was illegally replicating goods made by Wincraft, the company that markets the most diverse product line in the realm of licensed NASCAR merchandise.

"We got a tip about a year ago that someone was counterfeiting Wincraft decals," says Wincraft President John Killen. "Working with local authorities, we set up a sting operation at a number of retail locations and a warehouse or two. In a matter of a few weeks, we confiscated hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. A number of individuals were arrested and spent time in jail."

LINKED TO TERRORISM In the early days of the racing collectibles boom, most counterfeiting was done domestically by small mom-and-pop operations operating beneath the radar. According to Grooms, the business has shifted toward the traditional end of trademark infringement — people who will counterfeit anything for a buck. More and more goods are being produced overseas and smuggled into the country, where they are disbursed through an elaborate distribution system.

"Some of the profits realized from counterfeit merchandise have been tied directly to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda," Grooms reveals. "Consequently, U.S. Customs, the FBI and Homeland Security have gotten more involved. That's a huge asset to us because they have such tremendous resources, and they can charge counterfeiters under federal statutes."

Grooms adds that state legislatures have beefed up local laws significantly over the past decade.

"Almost every state now has a criminal statute against counterfeiting," he explains. "That makes it better for us because it allows us to go after the people who don't have enough merchandise to get the federal authorities involved. Those people can be charged under state law."

Penalties vary from state-to-state and depend on the amount of merchandise seized, but stiff fines and jail time are a definite possibility. Civil litigation is also possible, as federal law entitles a plaintiff to triple damages for every verifiable sale of a counterfeit item.

WHAT'S OUT THERE? Counterfeiters are eager to make a quick profit, so they lean toward products that can be produced with a minimum investment. T-shirts, hats, vinyl decals and plaques have long been the most prominent categories of NASCAR knock-offs, along with posters, pictures, postcards, and clocks. However, the market is becoming more diverse with more and more hard goods like knives and lighters surfacing of late, and the era of cellular communication has spawned a plethora of unauthorized cell phone accessories.

Trading cards were once a hot spot in the bogus racing market. However, the complex production techniques now used by card companies are putting their products farther out of the reach of memorabilia villains. The same can be said of die-cast. Altered scale replicas do surface from time-to-time, but they usually stand out like a possum at a dog show.

Of course, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and the late Dale Earnhardt are the top sellers in the legitimate collectibles market and thereby the favorite targets of knock-off artists. The Intimidator was by far the most ardent opponent of counterfeiting before his death. He wouldn't even autograph anything that wasn't licensed. Now that Dale Jr. has inherited the role of "most collected," he shares his father's disdain for the gray market.

"Obviously I'm not very cool about it," says Earnhardt Jr. "I take the same stance as my father. Aside from the laws against it, the simple fact of someone making a quick buck off my back makes me angry. I would hope that any of my fans who are interested in spending their money on racing merchandise would buy from licensed dealers. The dealers spend millions on licensing teams and providing the fans with higher quality items. Don't settle for anything less."

Tony Stewart is another driver who has no tolerance of bootlegging. When a Georgia man was arrested for allegedly selling fake Stewart helmets over the internet, the Home Depot driver pushed for prosecution and filed a lawsuit against the suspect.

"I want to be on the record in saying that selling fake racing merchandise of any kind will not be tolerated by me or anyone affiliated with Tony Stewart Motorsports," Stewart stresses. "It's deceptive, and it hurts race fans and teams alike — race fans because they're not getting authentic merchandise for which they paid, and teams who are unable to secure the royalties from racing merchandise so they can't re-invest that money back into the race team."

LICENSED TO THRILL Many race fans are under the misconception that "licensed" simply means a manufacturer writes a big check to NASCAR, a driver, and/or team in exchange for the rights to produce a particular item. Actually, there's more to it than that.

Both the sanctioning body and its teams go to great lengths to ensure that all licensed merchandise is top quality. The standards are high, and if you think it's tough getting a NEXTEL Cup car through inspection, you should try getting a proposed collectible past the discerning eyes of Mark Dyer and the folks at NASCAR licensing. Hence, the quality of authorized merchandise is always well above that of knock-offs.

"We take a hard look at authenticity and quality," says NASCAR's Dyer. "When you purchase a licensed piece, you know that the driver, the team, and the sponsor have signed off on it. When you buy an unauthorized product, it's ‘buyer beware.' Typically, you're talking about much poorer quality. The driver and team have no control over the design. Phony is phony. And if it is a collectible, it has no value whatsoever."