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US Judge Dismisses Part of Alibaba Counterfeit Goods Lawsuit (reuters.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what's-original,-what's-fake dept.

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.

39 comments

  1. He should have dropped the whole shit by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I mean, after all it's likely that they came from the same sweatshop that make the "real" ones...

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    1. Re:He should have dropped the whole shit by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      True. They just do extra runs of the product during off hours. Alibaba/Aliexpress has cracked down on the sale of these products though.

    2. Re:He should have dropped the whole shit by Dorianny · · Score: 1

      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

    3. Re:He should have dropped the whole shit by NormalVisual · · Score: 1

      For some items I'm sure that's the case. Others, definitely not. The counterfeit Music Man and Rickenbacker electric basses commonly available on AliExpress are cheap, CHEAP ripoffs of the original (American-made) products, and don't feel or sound anything like the real ones. Another risk you take ordering these is if U.S. Customs happens to inspect the package, determines it's a counterfeit, and seizes it. Good luck getting your money back.

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    4. Re:He should have dropped the whole shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... forced them to start producing in countries with strong Labor Laws again

      Haven't seen that come to pass, yet.

  2. People still buy Gucci? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    Aren't they like two generations out of date? Maybe in 1980 folks cared about that crap.

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    1. Re:People still buy Gucci? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://www.pinterest.com/pin/134756213820549676/

      Sounds like you're the one who's generations out of date, gramps.

    2. Re:People still buy Gucci? by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      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 are expensive.) Sunglasses are $500 a pair, easy.

      And it's not artificial scarcity, they get 50 of these keycases in and they're gone in 2 days. People buy that stuff like crazy, you have no idea.

      So trust me, some people still care about that "crap", you probably just don't make enough money to be aware of it.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    3. Re:People still buy Gucci? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe he has more to offer his wife than a credit card. Just because you had to buy your wife doesn't mean the rest of us didn't seduce ours with displays of manliness and physical prowess.

    4. Re:People still buy Gucci? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      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 stocked.

      So trust me, some people still care about that "crap", you probably just don't make enough money to be aware of it.

      I'm too lazy to cook. I spend $600/month on food because I eat out every meal.

      I spend roughly 30% of my income. I pile $18,000 into my 401(k), $3,500 into my HSA, and an extra $5,000 into ROTH IRA if I'm feeling it each year. At the end of every month, I've got between $1,800 and $3,100 of my paycheck unspent.

      I waste my money on food; I'll buy a $2,000 stove one day and re-teach myself to cook; first I've got to treat the ADHD, because I don't do *anything* I want to do. That $7,000 piano I bought last year? I haven't learned to play yet; I spend all day watching Twitch instead. I want to learn programming as a well-developed skill; haven't bothered. I finally caught up on learning foreign languages. I bought a $400 Wacom tablet to learn to draw, then stopped practicing in a week. It's time for me to fix this shit--stimulants, behavioral therapy, whatever I need--and get shit done.

      I'm not "aware" of this stuff because it's complete and utter horse shit. People in my generation aren't buying diamonds, and the Economist ran an article discussing the phenomena--it's because diamonds are bullshit rocks that don't do a god damned thing, but cost $9999. 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; or you could buy some Uggs that come with a warning that they're not made for HEAVY WALKING for $150, and they'll fall apart if it happens to rain because the engineering is shit. Me, I buy a pair of leather Chucks and a $6 tube of Freesole, and keep my $50 shoes in one piece for 3-5 years.

      I bought a house and paid it off in 4 years. It was going to be 3, but I wanted to build my 401(k) as a loan source first, do some insulation work, have trees removed....

      Maybe I'm just not retarded. $500 for a pair of sunglasses, seriously.

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    5. Re:People still buy Gucci? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      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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    6. Re:People still buy Gucci? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Damn. Glad I lucked out on the 770 model then. I wanted something for snow, and they've held up for years.

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      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    7. Re:People still buy Gucci? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Kardashians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I buy everything through a Kim Kardashian referral link, so, I know all my goods are authentic.

    Only poor plebs look for deals and get suckered into counterfeit items.

  4. Amazing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It is amazing I can get shoes shipped from China for $45 with free shipping from aliexpress, but the same shoe costs $145.00 in a store in the US. And don't give me bullshit about "lower quality". It is the exact same soccer shoe. It just shows you how much we are getting ripped off in the West.

  5. Legos by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Alibaba is the best place to buy Legos, I mean building blocks, if you have a kid. They are reasonably priced. Lego sets shouldn't cost $80+. Plus they sell minifigures separately.

    1. Re:Legos by mrbester · · Score: 1

      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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    2. Re:Legos by adolf · · Score: 1

      ...and? If there's made by LEGO in China, then they're still Lego.

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      Kid-proof tablet..
    3. Re:Legos by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      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?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  6. "Counterfeit" by jdavidb · · Score: 3, 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.

    --
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    1. Re:"Counterfeit" by imidan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I've had the experience on Amazon of buying a product that I was already familiar with from purchasing in a bricks-and-mortar store. I was buying another one as a gift. It was presented on Amazon as being genuine merchandise from the original manufacturer. When it arrived, it was a cheap plastic knockoff that, while functional, was obviously manufactured using different and less material for cost savings and had been through an inferior QA process, so there were a number of pieces that had manufacturing defects. This was not a case of the factory just running more production than the product owner requested. The cost was pretty close to what I had paid in the store, so it wasn't like I was getting a great deal.

      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.

    2. Re:"Counterfeit" by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 1

      Until you get a shoddy o2 sensor and wonder why you car runs like shit

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    3. Re:"Counterfeit" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another issue is that Chinese scammers are subsidized by the Chinese postal service, so they can sell a cheap products on Amazon with $0.00 shipping. It's an another unfair advantage. They pay cheap Chinese postal rates to get it in the mail, and the US Post Office delivers it for free in the USA due to the international postal agreements. It's another way they can undercut the authentic sellers on price.

    4. Re:"Counterfeit" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I too have had .

      One would think it is not that big a deal but , and thus counterfeiting is actually a bad thing. ...

      Your not employed by a PR firm that may be under contract with a luxury brand to help shape online perception of counterfeiting, are you?

    5. Re:"Counterfeit" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I too have had [insert generic outrageous experience purchasing unspecified counterfeit goods].

      One would think it is not that big a deal but [insert generic extraordinary circumstances that hopefully readers sympathize with], and thus counterfeiting is actually a bad thing. ...

      Your not employed by a PR firm that may be under contract with a luxury brand to help shape online perception of counterfeiting, are you?

    6. Re:"Counterfeit" by imidan · · Score: 1

      Well, no, but I can add it to the list of businesses and industries that I am accused of shilling for.

      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 of whatever similar-sounding chemicals the manufacturer happened to have a tank full of.

      But, then, maybe I'm actually a shill for the high-end cosmetics industry. On Slashdot.

    7. Re:"Counterfeit" by itsenrique · · Score: 1

      Who the fuck wants to wait 25-40 days for an O2 sensor, and who is stocking up on oxygen sensors from AliEx? Only a mechanic that is probably making tons of other mistakes as well.

  7. Civil RICO has a really high bar. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ken White from Popehat can explain why you shouldn't be surprised at all by this. https://popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-dammit/

  8. LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Pinterest???

    No straight male human has ever visited that site even once.

    1. Re:LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Homophobe spotted.

    2. Re:LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And you believe that only straight males have money and buy things? The popularity of Hello Kitty and gay porn must confuse the hell out of you.

    3. Re: LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Different AC here.

      Hello Kitty DOES confuse the hell out of me. Apparently it's not even a cat! Now you're associating it with gay porn. I though it was something for the kids.

      So yes, I am completely lost, old, and confused.

  9. Why ? by Archfeld · · Score: 2

    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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    errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
    1. Re:Why ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      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.

    2. Re:Why ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Corporations are global entities, you already know that. The US allows said globals to buy policy far easier than they can in the rest of the western world. Why are you acting like a dumb 13 year old girl? You've probably been a dweeb on /. for longer.

    3. Re:Why ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sir are a colon kissing taint licking inbred retard. Get thee from thy mothers' basement into the light before your panties choke you unconscious. Someday you will reach puberty and begin to question why you have no friends, three nipples and smell of old cheese. Take a shower ask mommy to make you PB&J with the crusts cut off and get a job.

  10. The same claims against Kim Dot Com by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe he should change his name to something French.

  11. Aliexpress by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Buying at reputable seller in Aliexpress that isnt faking trademarks means paying a lot less for the same product. On average the normal price in the west is 5x or more that in aliexpress.

    Btw walmart should be renamed to "Aliexpress low, real low quality outlet"