Apple Corps Sues to Stop Redacted Defendant’s Sale of Fake Beatles Goods

An individual defendant, or a business entity of “unknown makeup” whose identity is redacted, is engaging in the online sale of counterfeit and unauthorized Beatles-branded products, alleged Beatles trademark owner Apple Corps in an infringement complaint Tuesday (docket 0:24-cv-60669) in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in Fort Lauderdale. The defendant misappropriates the Beatles band members’ “likeness” by advertising and selling goods using that likeness without Apple Corps’ authorization, alleged the complaint. The Beatles enjoy worldwide “notoriety and fame,” it said. As a result, the band members’ likenesses “are widely recognized, giving them substantial monetary value in the marketplace,” it said. The Beatles “have a substantial global and intergenerational fan base,” it said. The defendant is conducting and targeting its counterfeiting, infringing and misappropriating activities toward consumers and causing harm throughout the U.S., it said. It’s defrauding Apple Corps and the consuming public for its own benefit, it said. The defendant’s wrongful conduct “is likely to create a false impression and deceive consumers into believing there is a connection or association” between Apple Corps’ “genuine goods” and the defendant’s counterfeit goods, “which there is not,” it said. The same attorney, Stephen Gaffigan, sued on behalf of Apple Corps last year to stop multiple defendants from trafficking in “counterfeits and confusingly similar imitations” of Beatles goods over the internet (see 2304270048).