sorry billions is lost on knock offs, from straight reduced market share due to a lower cost competitor YOU may have developed, to a devalued brand because of the stigma generated from those that may not qualify have your branded goods.
Piracy is worse, artist X gets a $1. every time the record gets sold or a copy of the movie is sold, unless the copy is paying zero royalties. The artist, producer, actor make nothing, the pirate gets most.
Its pretty well documented in the free world what the estimated cost of forgeries and piracy costs.
Nobody in the bike industry cares about CTC selling bike bikes, except the annoying calls to see if a honda service dept will look at your dongdingba scooter motor.
unless I missed your sarcasm font, in which case carry on.
Here are some real, factual examples contrary to your post which has quite obviously been influenced almost verbatim, by propaganda.
1. I could not afford a Fender Telecaster, therefore could not have bought one from Fender. Instead I bought a copy, and I enjoyed it. Because I was never in a position to purchase their product, they did not lose a sale. BTW, later when I had more money, because I liked the fender designed copy(which did include some fender parts), I did infact purchase a brand new Fender. So rather than a sale lost, a sale as gained. Also note that if I bought a used one, which I might have afforded, they still do not get a sale, even though I bought a authentic.
2. I could not afford a Harley Davidson motorcycle, and definitely not a new one. I still very much like their bikes, and maybe someday I will be able to walk into a showroom and purchase one. Instead of buying a Harley, I bought a Shadow Phantom. Most who don't notice the Honda badge mistake it for Milwaukee iron. In this case, HD did NOT lose a sale, in fact because my shadow has fueled my lust for a low, loud, black cruiser, HD will gain a future sale that may have been lost if I had just gotten bored. Once again, if I bought used, no sale for HD, should they try to crush the used market?
3. For XBOX, I'll use previously owned resale examples because they effect the game industry in the exact same way that they say piracy does. I rarely buy new games unless addicted to the franchise. If I never play the game at all, well the game company neither gains or loses a sale, I simply would not have existed to them. However I bought Forza used, and although the neither gained or lost a sale, I then have bought every Forza title since, netting them 5 further sales that they would not have otherwise had. Similar stories with the Call of Duty franchise. And so on.
4. This is the last one I feel is necessary to make the point, and it may shatter your world to know that what the RIAA fed you was a lie. Do you know who Eric Church is? Neither did I, then I heard him on the radio FOR FREE imagine that, then I downloaded some songs FOR FREE, what a dirty pirate I am. Then, because I so enjoyed the music which I downloaded for free, I bought the next album, joined the fanclub(for early ticket access and a tshirt), pit tickets for the next concert, bought a tshirt at he concert, and bought the next album after that. I bet they sure do wish that I never bothered downloading those pirated tracks. It would have been much better for that artist if I had never been exposed in the first place, right?
There are a lot of artists out there that recognize the potential exposure and appreciate it, as they'd rather be heard by s many as possible, than simply paid by the few. There are software companies like Adobe that don't care if a guy at home downloads a burned creative suite, because maybe he'll teach himself how to use it and help expand the industry which is actually their bread and butter.
In most cases a non-sale today, means a bigger sale tomorrow. These are the facts, the rest is propaganda. But you did answer my earlier query correctly, the big guys never cared about the dingdangdong china dirtbikes at CTC, and they probably made sales to newly addicted riders when the dingdangdongs broke. Guess I didn't need to write this out, since you proved the point.