Several e-commerce stores are probably regretting selling products featuring the Wu-Tang Clan logo as RZA has filed a lawsuit against them.
As reported by Complex, the rapper from the iconic hip hop group has accused the stores of trademark infringement, counterfeiting, and false designation of origin.
The bootleggers are believed to be operating from China and are also using Wu-Tang’s brand to convince customers they’re selling authentic merchandise.
“Many defendants also deceive unknowing consumers by using the Wu-Tang Clan Trademarks without authorisation within the content, text, and/or meta tags of their e-commerce stores to attract various search engines crawling the Internet looking for e-commerce stores relevant to consumer searches for Wu-Tang Clan products,” the lawsuit documents state.
“Other e-commerce stores operating under the Seller Aliases omit using the Wu-Tang Clan Trademarks in the item title to evade enforcement efforts while using strategic item titles and descriptions that will trigger their listings when consumers are searching for Wu-Tang Clan products.”
RZA aims to prohibit these stores from continuing to sell their fake merchandise. He’s seeking one of two things: either $2 million for the use of Wu-Tang trademarks, or alternatively all profits and damages for trademark infringement. He also wants legitimate companies such as Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress to stop promoting these products.
It’s not the first time the rapper has called out trademark infringement. Back in 2017, he sued a dog walking company for using the name Woof-Tang Clan, saying the logo was “unmistakably associated” with Wu-Tang.
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Away from lawsuits, the group were back in the news earlier this month when the U.S. government released new photos of their special Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album.
A massive 67 pages of documentation were shared by the U.S. Marshals Service, although sadly the actual recordings were still absent due to them not being reproducible.
For more on this topic, follow the Hip Hop Observer.
