To contribute to a new understanding of the problems related to counterfeiting and piracy, the present article introduces the concepts of the “real fake” and the “creative economy”. Both concepts can be considered oxymora in their intrinsic quality of combining concepts carrying an apparently antagonistic meaning. They are used as critical tools to transcend the present “black and white” picture drawn in the global debate about international trade in counterfeit and pirated products against the background of a severe fragmentation of the various legal disciplines and their respective regimes.