{"id":1220,"date":"2024-06-10T16:51:55","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T16:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/meet-the-companies-trying-to-end-the-online-counterfeit-merch-business\/"},"modified":"2024-06-10T17:36:26","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T17:36:26","slug":"meet-the-companies-trying-to-end-the-online-counterfeit-merch-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/meet-the-companies-trying-to-end-the-online-counterfeit-merch-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet The Companies Trying to End the Online Counterfeit Merch Business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tAbout four months ago, Maiden Voyage<\/em>, an album of Iron Maiden radio recordings from the 1980s, popped up for sale on Coda Records\u2019 website without the storied metal band\u2019s permission. Andrew Wyllie<\/strong>, Iron Maiden\u2019s head of business affairs, contacted the act\u2019s labels, BMG and Warner Music, for help persuading the U.K. retailer to pull down the unauthorized album \u2014 with, he says, no success. His next call went to Corsearch.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 75-year-old brand-protection company, which fights bootleggers using artificial intelligence, image-matching software and automated takedown notices on retail sites like Amazon, Etsy and eBay, quickly ended the sale of Maiden Voyage<\/em> and social media ads for it and was \u201cmore effective in getting those records taken down than our record company,\u201d Wyllie says. \u201cThey\u2019ve definitely affected the bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t(A Coda rep says the store removed Maiden Voyage<\/em> after hearing from Iron Maiden, the process was \u201cvery straightforward\u201d and \u201cwe\u2019re happy just to take stuff down if there\u2019s a problem.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\n\tFor a long time, artists, managers, labels and merchandise companies have likened online bootleg sales to a game of Whac-A-Mole: When attorneys send cease-and-desist notices to unauthorized and knock-off merch retailers, the seller reemerges elsewhere. But in recent years, companies such as Corsearch and rival CounterFind have used more sophisticated methods to protect their music-business clients. They remove tens of thousands of online listings every month, hire regional attorneys to invoke the U.S. trademark statute known as the Lanham Act and prosecute violators.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s scientific, it\u2019s strategic and there are solutions,\u201d says Eric Cohen<\/strong>, founder of TZU Strategies, which collaborates with Corsearch and claims to have removed 55,000 counterfeit listings on behalf of top music stars. Using \u201crobust\u201d technology, he says, \u201cwe are able to connect a large majority of the counterfeiters that are using multiple accounts selling on multiple platforms in multiple ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCorsearch has 450 employees and 5,000 clients, including A-list artists and music companies. \u201cWe work with law enforcement we\u2019ve had relationships with for 15 years,\u201d vp of enforcement Joe Cherayath<\/strong> says.<\/p>\n

\n\tDallas-based CounterFind is more of a \u201cboutique\u201d company, says co-founder and head of business development Rachel Aronson<\/strong>. In 2017, the founders were working with Linkin Park when frontman Chester Bennington<\/strong> died and, as Aronson recalls, \u201cAn insane amount of counterfeit merch was popping up all over the place.\u201d CounterFind removed \u201cmillions of dollars in counterfeit products from the market in one weekend,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\tSince then, CounterFind has expanded to 30 employees and works with Bravado, the merch company owned by Universal Music Group (UMG) that represents Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish and dozens of other artists. \u201cThe majority of these major counterfeiters are working from their couches overseas and they\u2019re creating print-on-demand products,\u201d Aronson says.<\/p>\n

\n\tMusic bootlegging and counterfeiting is big business. Last year, U.S. Border and Customs Protection seized nearly $2.8 billion in copyright-infringing goods shipped from countries like China, Turkey and Canada. Jeff Jampol<\/strong>, whose company, JAM Inc., manages the estates of The Doors, Janis Joplin and others, estimates these unauthorized sellers cost artists roughly $20,000 to $50,000 for every $1 million in yearly T-shirt sales. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of endless,\u201d says Rick Sales, longtime manager for Slayer, Ghost, Mastodon and others. \u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018How long is a piece of string?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBravado\u2019s president, Matt Young<\/strong>, adds that Counterfind and Universal Music\u2019s in-house intellectual-property-protection team have been \u201cproactive\u201d and UMG artists and managers appreciate the company\u2019s reports showing all the takedowns they\u2019ve achieved of unauthorized material online. But \u201cit kind of still is like Whac-A-Mole,\u201d he says: Amazon has been \u201cgreat\u201d at strengthening its protocols to fight against bootleggers, but \u201cthese marketplaces don\u2019t really care where this business comes from,\u201d and \u201cif you Google any artists, the first several things you see would be pirated goods.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRepresentatives for Corsearch and CounterFind disagree. Aronson describes a repeat offender who was \u201cbasically scraping and copying an artist\u2019s entire merch site\u201d using a website address with one letter removed from the official URL. After months of reporting the bootlegger through its multiple hosting providers, CounterFind employed the Lanham Act to permanently remove the site and domain. In April, Corsearch worked with police in China to raid warehouses belonging to alleged online counterfeiter Pandabuy and seized millions of packages about to be shipped to customers. \u201cThe key point,\u201d Cherayath says, \u201cis not to stop at cease-and-desist \u2014 that\u2019s just one of the mechanisms in the enforcement strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to scouring the internet for unauthorized merch sellers and providing data to the band about where counterfeiters are located, Corsearch helps Iron Maiden discern which t-shirt manufacturers are bootleg operations and which are harmless fans who design their own apparel for a few extra bucks. The Corsearch system also allows the band\u2019s management to respond to fans\u2019 tips and identify bootleggers and counterfeiters based on complaints \u2014 like the Facebook scammers who promise VIP tickets and backstage access with a $500 click.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s the bane of my life. As soon as we announce a tour, the bootleggers online have already stolen the image from a tour poster and put it on a t-shirt in five minutes,\u201d Wyllie says. \u201cThe Corsearch system almost pays for itself. You\u2019re not having to use local attorneys and you\u2019re getting to the root of the problem pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA version of this story appears in the June 8, 2024, issue of\u00a0<\/em>Billboard.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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