Dua Lipa’s Merch Supplier Sues Over Counterfeits at Radical Optimism Tour

Sony merchandise venture Ceremony of Roses has sued to stop bootleggers from selling knockoff Dua Lipa merch at during her Radical Optimism Tour — the latest in a recent spate of anti-counterfeiting lawsuits brought by official merch retailers.

The Wednesday (Sept. 10) lawsuit claims a group of anonymous counterfeiters are violating federal trademark law by hawking bootleg Lipa T-shirts and other knockoffs outside the arenas hosting the pop star. Ceremony of Roses is the official merch supplier for the U.S. leg of Lipa’s Radical Optimism Tour, which began at Chicago’s United Center on Sept. 5 after a blockbuster international trek.

“The tour has just begun and so have defendants’ infringing activities,” write Ceremony of Roses’ lawyers, Mark Bradford and Cara Burns. “The infringing merchandise that defendants sell is generally of inferior quality. The sale of such merchandise has injured and is likely to injure the reputation of the artist which has developed by virtue of her public performances and the reputation of the plaintiff for high quality authorized tour merchandise.”

The Sony company is asking for a court order that would allow it to seize and impound these counterfeit merch items throughout Lipa’s U.S. tour leg, which concludes Oct. 16 at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena.

Reps for Sony and Lipa did not immediately return requests for comment on Wednesday.

Bradford and Burns are behind a recent string of nearly identical anti-counterfeiting lawsuits brought by official merch sellers. The lawyer duo filed two such cases last month, one on behalf of Ceremony of Roses and the other representing Live Nation subsidiary Merch Traffic, seeking to put a halt to knockoff sales outside Benson Boone and Tate McRae shows.

In the McRae case, Merch Traffic won a nationwide court injunction on Wednesday giving it permission to seize and impound bootleg merch during the ongoing U.S. leg of the singer’s Miss Possessive Tour.

The order followed a limited restraining enter entered by U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick last month, which allowed Merch Traffic to seize counterfeits only at McRae’s Madison Square Garden shows on Sept. 3 and Sept. 4.

In a Tuesday (Sept. 9) court declaration, Merch Traffic’s legal chief Emily Holt told the judge that her team indeed used this injunction to impound bootleg McRae t-shirts outside both MSG concerts. Holt said identical counterfeit merch then appeared at McRae’s Sept. 6 show at Philadelphia’s Xfinity Mobile Arena.

“The only logical conclusion is that the defendant bootleggers served at the Madison Square Garden concerts and those selling the same infringing merchandise at the concerts both before and after the Madison Square Garden concerts operate together,” wrote Holt. “The only way to provide complete relief to plaintiff is to [allow] the continued seizing of the infringing merchandise for the duration of the artist’s tour.”

This argument swayed Judge Broderick, who says in Wednesday’s order that Merch Traffic can continue seizing counterfeits within four hours and four miles of all McRae’s U.S. tour stops.

This seizure order covers “all clothing, jewelry, photographs, posters and other merchandise bearing any or all of the artist’s trademarks, or any colorable imitations or variations thereof, being sold, offered for sale or held for sale in the vicinity of the stadiums, arenas or other places at which the artist shall be performing.”

McRae’s U.S. tour runs through Nov. 8. The pop star is set to play shows in Nashville, Orlando, Austin, Dallas, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Omaha, St. Louis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Boston, New York, Chicago, Grand Rapids, Charlotte, Raleigh, Kanas City, Tulsa, Houston, Phoenix and Palm Springs.

“The artist is extremely popular and many concerts on the tour are almost sold out or are sold out,” noted Holt in her court declaration. “Therefore, due to the popularity of the tour, additional dates may be added. If this happens, we will advise the court.”

Merch Traffic declined to comment on the injunction. McRae’s reps did not immediately return a request for comment.