Why Dua Lipa, Twenty One Pilots and other superstars are cracking down on counterfeit merch
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Attentive readers of MBW may have experienced a bit of deja vu recently when coming across a story about Temu being sued by an artist for selling counterfeit merch. That’s because just a month earlier, an almost identical story had run.
The difference between the two? In one instance, it was the estate of rapper MF Doom that had sued Temu over knock-off merch, while in the other story, it was pop duo Twenty One Pilots.
If it seems these merch lawsuits are becoming more frequent, it’s not just your imagination. A decade ago, lawsuits against merchandise counterfeiters – while they did happen – were few and far between, but today, a new case seems to be landing every few months.
So what’s behind this flurry of fake-merch lawsuits?
Below, we take a look at some of the key reasons counterfeit merchandise lawsuits are exploding, and list off some of the most prominent ones to have come along in the past several years.
Why are counterfeit merchandise lawsuits proliferating?
The simplest answer is that counterfeiting merchandise is becoming easier than ever at a time when merchandise is becoming more important to artists than ever.
The growing role of merch
As many artists and record label executives will tell you, the shift to streaming has had a suppressing effect on music revenue. But the growing popularity of live shows has presented a new earnings opportunity: “ancillary” revenue at shows, beyond the price of admission, in the form of apparel, posters, and other consumer goods that can help offset some of the relatively poor earnings from streaming.
Importantly, the digital revolution has made it possible to sell merch well beyond the stands at concerts. Artists can now easily set up online stores through a variety of music services, e-commerce companies, or through their own record label, and sell directly to consumers. Superfan platforms such as HYBE’s Weverse are also providing new avenues for merch sales.
This isn’t just speculation; earnings numbers back it up. In its 2024 annual report, Universal Music Group reported that its “merchandise and other” division saw revenues grow 19.3% year-on-year, to EUR €842 million (USD $911 million at the average exchange rate for the year). That more than doubled the company’s overall revenue growth of 7.6% on a constant currency basis.
Meanwhile, market research firm MIDiA reported that the music merch market was worth $14.0 billion in 2024, a year which marked what it called a “peak” in “merch fever.” Notably, MIDiA predicts a bit of a slowdown in the pace at which merch sales will grow, and expects the market turnover to rise to $16.3 billion by 2030.
That makes merch a big business for artists, and by one estimate, counterfeit merch costs artists $20,000 to $50,000 for every $1 million in legitimate sales.
So it stands to reason that preventing merch sales from being cannibalized by unauthorized knock-offs should be a higher priority than it used to be.
The growing ease of counterfeiting
At the same time, it’s never been easier to produce and sell counterfeit goods.
Low-cost manufacturers have proliferated in developing countries, particularly in places like China and India. There are now print-on-demand services that can put any design on a t-shirt or other consumer item and produce those goods in customizable quantities. And many of them don’t bother to check whether the customer ordering the print actually has the right to the image being printed.
Meanwhile, online platforms like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Temu and others have given small-time sellers access to a global customer base. And these merch lawsuits have shown that these platforms’ counterfeiting detection and removal practices are at best incomplete, and at worst, nonexistent.
Taken together, what it all means is that in the race between artists trying to capitalize on their fans’ loyalty and counterfeiters seeking to steal some of those artists’ brand value, the stakes have never been higher.
Notable counterfeit merchandise lawsuits in recent years
Please note this is not a complete list of counterfeit merch lawsuits in recent years, just some highlights to illustrate how common these lawsuits have become. Some merch lawsuits, including those filed by merch divisions of major record companies, often fly under the radar.
Luke Combs (2023)
Country star Luke Combs filed a lawsuit in October 2023 suing several online sellers who allegedly peddled “products using infringing and counterfeit versions of Combs’s federally registered trademarks.”
Combs won a default judgment in that case the following month, but it came with something of a PR headache. The media reported on one of the defendants, Nicol Harness of Florida, who had sold 18 unauthorized tumblers featuring Combs for $380 – and was now on the hook for $250,000.
Combs apologized to Harness and had her removed from the lawsuit.
Credit: DFree / Shutterstock.com
Harry Styles (2023)
Singer/songwriter Harry Styles filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Chicago in January 2023 against online marketplaces and individual sellers he accused of selling unauthorized merch featuring his trademarks.
Among the targets were AliExpress, Amazon, eBay and Etsy.
A few months later, the court issued a default judgment permanently blocking a number of sellers from selling goods featuring Styles’ trademarks, and ordered the retail platforms to disable sales and ads of the infringing products.
Credit: Anaribphoto / Shutterstock.com
Benson Boone (2025)
Pop singer Benson Boone is at the center of a new lawsuit brought in August by Sony’s merch venture Ceremony of Roses against counterfeiters selling knock-off merch outside shows of Boone’s American Heart tour.
“Individual bootleggers follow tours, or arrange to have local individuals sell the infringing merchandise for them,” Ceremony of Roses Touring VP Alan Sitchon wrote in a declaration.
“Many designs also have tour dates and venues on them, which also indicates that they will continue to go from venue to venue to sell their infringing merchandise.”
In September, a federal court granted a request for a preliminary injunction and seizure order against the alleged bootleggers, and according to a news report, Ceremony of Roses has been on site at concerts and has been confiscating bootleg merch.
Credit: Fred Duval/Shutterstock
Dua Lipa (2025)
Ceremony of Roses has also launched legal action against bootleggers selling knock-off merch outside concerts by Dua Lipa, whose Radical Optimism Tour began its US leg in Chicago on September 5.
“The tour has just begun and so have defendants’ infringing activities,” lawyers for Ceremony of Roses wrote in a complaint filed in federal court on September 10.
As with the Benson Boone knock-offs, the company is asking the court for the ability to seize and impound the unauthorized merch.
Credit: Ron Adar / Shutterstock.com
Tate McRae (2025)
Merch Traffic, the exclusive merch retailer for the US leg of Tate McRae‘s currently running Miss Possessive Tour, filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in August against unknown individuals selling knock-off merch near the shows.
As with the Ceremony of Roses lawsuits, Merch Traffic is asking for the ability to seize the goods being sold. There are “no other means” of stopping the bootlegging, Merch Traffic’s lawyers wrote, because “after the infringing merchandise is sold, they will promptly disappear.”
Credit: Fred Duval / Shutterstock.com
David Gilmour (2025)
David Gilmour, of Pink Floyd fame, launched a trademark infringement lawsuit in April against OtherBrick, operator of a website selling knock-off Pink Floyd merch under the domain pinkfloydmerch.com.
The lawsuit, filed in a court in Illinois by Gilmour’s company, David Gilmour Music Ltd., stated that OtherBrick was “using a fake online storefront designed to appear to be selling genuine [Gilmour] products, while selling inferior imitations of [Gilmour] products.”
The complaint seeks an injunction to stop OtherBrick from selling the goods in question, and seeks financial damages of $2 million per violation.
credit: Dylanhatfield.com / Shutterstock.com
MF Doom (2025)
The estate of late rapper Daniel Dumile, aka MF Doom, filed a lawsuit in August against Temu, the China-headquartered online retailer, alleging the platform has allowed sellers to peddle numerous knock-offs of MF Doom merch.
“Instead of policing its products to guard against infringement, [Temu] chooses to profit from sales of such products, in disregard of artist and brand rights,” stated the complaint, which was filed in a federal court in California.
It described Temu as “one of the most unethical companies operating in today’s global marketplace.”
Credit: Ben Houdijk / Shutterstock.com
Twenty One Pilots (2025)
About a month after the MF Doom lawsuit was filed, a legal team that includes some of the same lawyers who are working on the MF Doom case filed another lawsuit against Temu, this time on behalf of pop duo Twenty One Pilots.
The lawsuit alleges that Temu “manufactures and sells a myriad of items that are counterfeit or blatant copies of plaintiff’s artwork, trademarks, and intellectual property.”
Temu “is known to exercise ironclad control over what products are sold on its platform, how much they are sold for, and how they are manufactured. Meaning Temu essentially functions as ‘a vertically integrated manufacturer and retailer,’ making it even more ‘vulnerable to claims that it sells pirated products,’” the complaint stated.Music Business Worldwide
