Simple. Epiphone's guitars are labeled as such. They aren't labeled as Gibsons despite many being a virtual copy or replica of the Gibson version. When someone builds a guitar in China and instead of labeling it with a name they selected for the brand they call it a Gibson or an Epiphone or a Fender that's counterfeiting and it's illegal. US customs intercept millions of dollars of counterfeit goods each day.
So this isn't a debate about quality it's all about buying a counterfeited guitar being passed off as the real thing because it has been so well done. Some friends who own a pawn bank got stung with a fake Les Paul that even I had a struggle with telling that it was fake. The guitar played well but cheap pickups and electronics were a big tell.
If no one else ever owns that counterfeit but you then no one else is impacted by it other than the US manufacturer and then only by losing a sale they never would have had to begin with. It's when that guitar ends up floating around on Reverb, Ebay, CL, FB Marketplace, etc. that it becomes a problem mostly for buyers but that's not to say a seller hasn't been stung as well.
You're actually lucky we even discuss these fakes here. Some forums won't permit posts selling or soliciting counterfeit guitars. Personally I believe people should play what they like and my choice is not to own a counterfeit guitar even though I have a good friend who has one. But he did have a label saying "replica" inscribed into it so it can never be sold as a legit LP.
