The Beatles File Multi-Million Lawsuit to Crack Down on Counterfeit Goods

www.billboard.com
The Beatles File Multi-Million Lawsuit to Crack Down on Counterfeit Goods
by Steve Marinucci
2/2/2018


The Beatles
John Pratt/Keystone/Getty Images

The complaint names 48 different online sites selling unauthorized merchandise.

The Beatles' companies Apple Corps Ltd. and Subafilms Ltd. filed a lawsuit on Thursday against a list of 48 internet dealers and aliases for promoting, distributing and selling items that bear counterfeit logos or imitations of their respective trademarks. The defendants in the suit include shirtsforyou.net, B.F. Store, Good luck to you, GreenMango Store and HOOK ON YOU.

The lawsuit alleges trademark counterfeiting and infringement, “false designation of origins” to confuse potential buyers, common law unfair competition and common law trademark infringement. According to the lawsuit, the defendants are either located in or distribute their products from territories with lax trademark enforcement. Besides their own websites, the suit says the goods were also available from the sellers on commercial sites such as Amazon, eBay, Bonanza.com and Etsy.



According to the suit, the companies have sold items that include bed linens and pillowcases, apparel for men, women and toddlers, such as tank tops, T-shirts, jackets, hats, shoes, onesies, cases for mobile telephones, pendants, backpacks and doormats, and that the items are of “a quality substantially and materially different than that of Plaintiffs’ respective, genuine goods.”

The legal relief asked for includes injunctions to stop the manufacture, advertising, distribution and sale of the goods, a block on registration and use of the domain names involved in the offending websites, getting commercial sites (such as Amazon, eBay and Etsy) to remove any listings of their goods, along with monetary damages of $2 million for each counterfeit trademark used or product sold.

Apple Corps Ltd. -- owned by the two living Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, and the estates of the late John Lennon and George Harrison -- owns and controls the exclusive merchandising rights “and other intangible rights in the name of the Beatles,” according to the complaint. Subafilms Ltd. is an associated company also owned by the Beatles related to the merchandising rights from the Fab Four's 1967 animated movie Yellow Submarine.







nypost.com
Beatles trademark owner sues vendors for counterfeit merch
By Richard Morgan
February 2, 2018



Getty Images

When it comes to counterfeit goods, the Beatles will no longer let it be.

Apple Corps, the owner of the trademarks of the Fab Four, has filed a $100 million lawsuit against 50 online vendors for allegedly selling merchandise with its “Beatles” and “Yellow Submarine” trademarks without permission.

The suit hopes to get back $2 million from each company.

The counterfeit trademarks were plastered on a host of products — ranging from onesies to tank tops — that created plenty of market helter skelter, according to the suit.

The goods are sold on the sellers’ e-commerce sites or on such marketplace sites as AliExpress.com, Amazon.com, Bonanza.com, eBay.com, and Etsy.com, the suit contends.

All across the universe the quality of Beatles-sanctioned merchandise is much better than the counterfeit goods, the suit claims.



“The natural and intended byproduct of defendants’ actions is the erosion and destruction of the goodwill associated with plaintiffs’ respective famous names and trademarks and the destruction of the legitimate market sector in which they operate,” the suit, filed in a federal court in Florida, said.

Scott Slavick, an IP lawyer with Barack Ferrazzano in Chicago, told The Post it is a usual day in the life of trademark lawyer to have a single action that targets counterfeiters by the dozens.

“Only the legit ones respond — but the others might see it as a deterrent,” he said. “They might think, ‘Since the Beatles are such strong trademark owners, let’s go pick on someone else.’”

Slavick said the amount Apple Corps is seeking from each company is aggressively high.