The information campaign among children from summer camps in the city of Chisinau on the risks of counterfeiting and piracy, organized by the State Agency on Intellectual Property (AGEPI) from June to August 2023, bore fruit, teaching the little ones about the importance of the fight against counterfeiting. Through questionnaires, AGEPI obtained a detailed insight into children’s perception and understanding of these phenomena.

The results of the questionnaires revealed that 55.4% of the children correctly understood that the counterfeit products were of poor quality, while 28.4% recognized that they were copies of the genuine products.

What was particularly impressive was the children’s ability to recognize counterfeit products. The majority correctly identified all three variants: poor packaging quality or lack thereof, sale by suspicious persons in unauthorized places and extremely low price as distinctive signs of counterfeiting.

Regarding the awareness of copyright and the use of images on social networks, 88.2% of children correctly understood that they must ask the author’s permission when they want to post a photo taken by a friend on Facebook.

The results also highlighted the reasons behind copying from the internet, with most children citing the ease of the process (40%), lack of confidence in their own creations (32.4%) and lack of time to create their own content (27.6%).

Regarding the frequency of copying from the Internet, the children’s opinion was almost equally divided: 44% answered that they never copied, and 44.4% said that they only do it sometimes.

The results of the questionnaires revealed that 66.6% of the children claimed that those who use the creations should pay the authors, thus underscoring the importance of compensation for creative work.

We remind you that this Information Campaign was carried out in four summer camps for children in Chisinau: Republican Center for Youth and Children “ARTICO”, Educational Center “Vibe Academy”, Academy of Programming and Creative Technologies for Children “Impact Academies&Camps” and Smart Start Kids Academy.

The campaign was completed with a total of 33 information lessons, attended by 728 children aged between 5 and 16 years.

For a detailed analysis of the results, you can see the full AGEPI campaign report below.