US Judge Dismisses Part of Alibaba Counterfeit Goods Lawsuit (reuters.com) 39
Reuters reports: A U.S. judge on Thursday dismissed part of a lawsuit filed last year by Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and other luxury brands accusing Alibaba Group Holding Ltd of promoting the sale of counterfeit goods. U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel in Manhattan dismissed racketeering claims asserted by brands owned by Paris-based Kering SA, saying their complaint failed to allege facts that could sustain those claims.Alibaba is not the only company which has been subjected to such accusations. Amazon has been treading the same path, with some sellers even leaving the platform.
He should have dropped the whole shit (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, after all it's likely that they came from the same sweatshop that make the "real" ones...
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I mean, after all it's likely that they came from the same sweatshop that make the "real" ones...
The number one reason they hate the counterfeiters is that they exposed their Luxury Brand production scam by doing exactly that and forced them to start producing in countries with strong Labor Laws again
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People still buy Gucci? (Score:2)
Aren't they like two generations out of date? Maybe in 1980 folks cared about that crap.
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Aren't they like two generations out of date? Maybe in 1980 folks cared about that crap.
Are you referring to brand name stuff? Lol, if so, you're the one that's out of date.
All that stuff- Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Prada, etc -all of it sells like fucking hotcakes. I was with my wife was in the Chanel store last night, she was looking for a little leather keycase that she wanted. They were all sold out. This thing was $750 plus tax, and there's a 2-month waiting list. That's about what I paid for my first car, a looooong time ago.
Purses? $3500 and up, for a tiny little purse. (The big ones
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And it's not artificial scarcity, they get 50 of these keycases in and they're gone in 2 days
It *is* artificial scarcity. Scarcity occurs when the human labor required to make something increases with scale (e.g. you run out of fertile farm land, so it takes twice the number of human labor hours--thus twice the pay--to make food? Food is getting more expensive, thus less available; if you keep scaling up, you WILL fail to make enough food for everyone, even if everyone starts working for free to make food). Counterfeiters can make these easy enough; Gucci could make more of them and keep them s
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The U.S. Military lets Belleville sell civilians a combat boot produced by the combined effort of no less than 6 vendors, with high- and low-temperature stable materials, high traction on ice and in mud, Goretex and 3M Thinsulate lining for waterproofing and insulation, the works, for $142;
They also let them make desert boots that pull apart the first time you put them on, and the fabric pulls right out of the leather part. Garbage.
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Damn. Glad I lucked out on the 770 model then. I wanted something for snow, and they've held up for years.
I have some of the black snow boots with removable liners, and they're peachy.
Amazing (Score:1)
Legos (Score:4, Insightful)
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Those are grey imports; LEGO does not sell bricks and sets that are made in the Chinese factory in the Western hemisphere.
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...and? If there's made by LEGO in China, then they're still Lego.
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Alibaba is the best place to buy Legos, I mean building blocks, if you have a kid.
So how do I spot the good ones on there?
"Counterfeit" (Score:4, Insightful)
I really appreciate businesses who sell "counterfeit" goods, or as I like to call them "knock offs." They are usually much more affordable but still serviceable versions of the expensive product somebody else wants me to buy. As long as there's no lying (fraud) going on, I don't think they should get to use the force of law to take away my choice to buy what I want from people who are willing to sell it.
The fact is that some folks want to charge more for their product and competition from cheaper competitors makes that more difficult.
As for "counterfeiting," the US government just keeps creating more and more dollars, so I'm not sure they should sit in judgment of anyone for something called "counterfeiting." Somehow this is a bad thing if a private citizen does it but a great thing for government to do, by their logic. Seems like the same story: they don't want anyone cutting in on their profits.
Re:"Counterfeit" (Score:5, Insightful)
If I had been aware that I was buying a knockoff, I could have taken that into consideration. If I was buying this thing for careless children, a knockoff would have been fine. But these dishonest sellers are portraying their products as the real thing, which can damage the reputation of the original company and of legitimate sellers (who get placed into a pool on Amazon when they advertise that they are selling the same product), leads to dissatisfied buyers and poor product reviews, and causes a hassle when the buyer has to go through the process of returning the item as counterfeit.
In another example, there's a seller on Amazon who manufactures and sells a certain kind of high-quality cotton bed sheets. They're having problems with bad product reviews because unscrupulous sellers piggyback on their product description and then ship people crappy polyester sheets. They had great reviews for their first few months of business, and apparently the scammers saw this and decided to get in on it, and the product reviews started plummeting. Also, the scammers become the default sellers of the product because they undercut the legitimate seller on price. This is a relatively small business that's being stunted by junk peddlers, and Amazon is willing to do very little about it. It's up to the consumer to parse the product page and make sure they're picking the correct seller.
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Actually, I suspect that well-made knockoffs of luxury goods are probably a pretty good deal for consumers who feel like they need to be seen with stuff like expensive handbags. The counterfeit goods that I'm more concerned with are things like flash drives that are smaller than they claim, or game pieces that don't match the original sets, or batteries that don't function as specified, or cosmetics made o
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Why ? (Score:3)
Why is a Paris based label suing a Chinese based company in the US anyways ? Seems like the wrong venue entirely. I would think that an EU based court would be a more likely venue for such a proceeding.
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They pick the court in the country where they have the best chance of winning and getting enforcement.
Either they felt the EU court would rule against them, or that the EU court would not be able to enforce a ruling in their favour.