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Super Bowl Bust: Feds Grab 307 NFL Websites; $4.8M
coondoggie writes "Speaking at a National Football League press conference ahead of this weekend's Super Bowl, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said special agents this week seized a total of 307 websites and snatched up 42,692 items of phony Super Bowl-related memorabilia along with other counterfeit items for a total take of more than $4.8 million – up from $3.72 million last year."
I'm 120 miles north of the Superbowl, and the FBI paid a visit to our mall and cleaned out one store of their NFL merchandise as being counterfeit. A lot of what they took was jerseys. Authentic game jerseys MSRP for around $200 so I could see an average being around $100.
"Visitors to these websites will then find a seizure banner that notifies them that the domain name has been seized by federal authorities and educates them that willful copyright infringement is a federal crime."
Correction: Willful copyright infringement in the form of selling counterfeit merchandise is a Federal crime. If you are infringing copyright solely for personal use, the vast majority of the time there is no "crime" at all. It is a civil infraction.
I looked quickly at the nfl.com shop, and their jerseys are $89-$99, but they had jackets and coats that range from $100 to $200, and framed lithographs for $150.
I imagine that a counterfeiting organization might not just counterfeit logos, but possibly also signatures. Maybe there's a bunch of signed footballs in the group also.
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