Sesame Workshop filed a lawsuit on Friday against sellers on e-commerce sites like eBay, Walmart and Amazon in an effort to stop the sale of allegedly counterfeit merchandise — or else pay $150,000 per infringed work.
The parent company of “Sesame Street” also named AliExpress, eCRATER, MadeInChina and Temu as examples of how these so-called alias store operators are able to function in their copyright lawsuit filed in the northern district of Illinois’ eastern division and obtained by TheWrap.
“Plaintiff filed this case to prevent e-commerce store operators who trade upon
Plaintiff’s reputation and goodwill from further selling and/or offering for sale Unauthorized Products,” they wrote. “Defendants create e-commerce stores under one or more Seller Aliases and then advertise, offer for sale and/or sell Unauthorized Products to unknowing consumers. E-commerce stores operating under the Seller Aliases share identifiers, such as design elements and similarities of the Unauthorized Products offered for sale, establishing that a logical relationship exists between them.”
The e-commerce websites in question did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Sesame Workshop specifically named characters Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Grover, Bert and Ernie as the main victims of this alleged racket.
“Defendants take advantage of a set of circumstances, including the anonymity and mass reach afforded by the Internet and the cover afforded by international borders, to violate Plaintiff’s intellectual property rights with impunity. Defendants attempt to avoid liability by operating under one or more Seller Aliases to conceal their identities, locations and the full scope and interworking of their operation,” the company continued. “Plaintiff is forced to file this action to combat Defendants’ counterfeiting of its registered trademarks and infringement of its registered copyrighted works, as well as to protect consumers from purchasing Unauthorized Products over the Internet.”
“Plaintiff has been, and continues to be, irreparably damaged through consumer confusion and dilution of its valuable trademarks and infringement of its copyrighted works because of Defendants’ actions and therefore seeks injunctive and monetary relief,” the lawsuit further noted.
Sesame Workshop is asking the above e-commerce sites to stop selling “reproductions, counterfeit copies or colorable imitations” of their toys and other merchandise, or else pay $150,000 per infringed work.
