Making knockoffs is not new. In Plato’s Laws, counterfeiters are said to short-change the gods and are to receive a whipping, the frequent outcome of which was death (917d). In the year 1000 AD, the most coveted make of sword in the West was of German manufacture, the Ulfberht. Over a hundred swords of this brand have been found in Viking graves in Scandinavia, and as far away as the Volga. So prestigious was this brand, with its name inlaid on the blade that fakes proliferated, the copycats often misspelling the name.