Photo: Getty
  /  01.26.2022

RZA has filed a lawsuit against several online shopping sites for selling counterfeit Wu-Tang Clan merchandise. The rapper is seeking damages from the bootleggers, who he accused of false designation of origin, counterfeiting and trademark infringement.

According to legal documents, RZA claims that e-commerce businesses — which may be running from China — are behind the sales of products embedded with the Wu-Tang Clan logo, while other marketplaces are using their trademarks within the sites to attract fans looking for authentic merchandise.

“Many defendants also deceive unknowing consumers by using the Wu-Tang Clan trademarks without authorization 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 documents read. “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 is seeking $2 million for “each and every” use of the Wu-Tang Clan trademarks. The producer also wants the judge to block further sales of fake products and companies like Amazon, eBay and AliExpress to cease promotions of the merchandise.

RZA is no stranger to the courtroom. He’s been on the receiving end of lawsuits and has taken legal action over the unauthorized use of his music and brand. In 2017, for example, he filed a trademark opposition with hopes to block a dog-walking company from calling themselves the “Woof-Tang Clan” — a name he believed was “likely to cause confusion” with his group’s name. Prior to that, the “Gravel Pit” rapper sent The Game a cease-and-desist over the RZA-produced song “Heartbreaker” despite its feature on a mixtape.

 

 

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