Stopping the e-commerce sales of knockoff T-shirts and other memorabilia on Amazon, eBay and other major platforms is a game of whack-a-mole, but CounterFind, which was co-founded by former Dallas Cowboys safety Darren Woodson, has become an effective hammer for the music industry
When a suicide bomber killed 22 people and injured hundreds following an Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena in England in May 2017, the singer and her agent wasted no time in setting up a June 4 One Love Manchester benefit concert — with a lineup that included Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Coldplay and Miley Cyrus — to aid the victims and their families. And counterfeiters wasted no time in knocking off the merch that was sold as part of the fundraiser.
Over six months, CounterFind, which was founded by chairman and initial investor Darren Woodson — a former Dallas Cowboys safety and, appropriately, the team’s all-time leading tackler — CEO Mike DeCoursey, head of business development Rachel Aronson and head of strategic partnerships Jamie Gerson, worked with Bravado to take down 675 different counterfeit products.
By 2022, the estimated value of counterfeit goods, including the illegal online distribution of copyrighted music, movies and software, is expected to approach $2.8 trillion, according to the International Trademark Association. Although the organization does not break out estimates for music merchandise, Vlasic estimates Bravado took down as much as $10 million in online counterfeit goods in 2019 with CounterFind’s help.
In response to the pandemic, these and other merch companies have amped up their e-commerce efforts to recoup some of that lost income — and so have counterfeiters. “Now that there is a bigger shift to e-commerce, the people who sell counterfeit [goods] for a living are having a field day,” says Aronson. “The number has exploded.”
In an interview, Woodson says his personal experience also played into his passion for helping to create CounterFind. “I’ve personally witnessed other athletes whose merchandise has been counterfeited, artists who have been hijacked on social media platforms,” says Woodson, who describes his co-founders as a tight-knit group that have built the firm together. Clients know “we understand the pain.”
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