network is not an illegal place, and it is also difficult to escape legal sanctions for selling fake goods during live broadcasts. In August last year, an Internet celebrity with an annual income of tens of millions was arrested by the police on the spot during a live broadcast. Now the case has finally been decided.
The Shanghai Yangpu District People's Court announced that Internet celebrity anchor Liao was guilty of selling goods with counterfeit registered trademarks, and was sentenced to 33 years and 4 months in prison and fined RMB 400,000.
An Internet celebrity who earned tens of millions selling fake goods was caught on the spot during a live broadcast and sentenced to more than three years.
Last year, a case in which an Internet celebrity was taken away by the police during a live broadcast attracted widespread attention. According to Beijing Toutiao client, Beiqing-Beijing Toutiao reporter learned from Shanghai Public Security Bureau that Liao, a head anchor with an annual income of tens of millions of yuan, never expected that he was originally selling goods through live broadcast, but instead The entire process of his arrest by the police was broadcast live.
On August 28, 2020, Liao, an Internet celebrity with millions of fans, was taken away by the police on the spot while live broadcasting in the live broadcast room.
The Hongkou District Procuratorate accused the defendant Liao and his team of marketing counterfeit clothing, accessories, watches and other products of brands such as Dior, CHANEL, LOEWE and other brands through live broadcasts on e-commerce live streaming platforms from March to August 2020. , the sales amount is nearly 700,000 yuan. The defendant Liao and five of her team members formed a gang, violated national trademark management regulations, and sold goods that they knew were counterfeit registered trademarks. The sales amount was huge. Their actions violated Article 214 of the " Criminal Law " , their criminal liability should be investigated separately for the crime of selling goods with counterfeit registered trademarks.
Now, this Internet celebrity with an annual income of over 10 million has finally been sentenced. According to news reports, on the afternoon of June 29, the Shanghai Yangpu District People’s Court pronounced a verdict in court on Liao and others’ live broadcast counterfeiting case. Liao was convicted of selling goods with counterfeit registered trademarks and was sentenced to 3 years and 4 months in prison and fined RMB 400,000. Liao cried bitterly and admitted his mistake: "We really have too little legal awareness. We sincerely admit our mistake."
Other members of Liao's team, including operations, assistants, field control, etc., were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of 2 to 3 years respectively2 months, and fines ranging from 5,000 to 50,000 yuan.
According to Shangguan News, in early 2020, when the Hongkou Procuratorate visited private enterprises in the research area, it received clues from a clothing company: an Internet celebrity anchor was selling counterfeit clothing of the company's brand in the live broadcast room of the e-commerce platform. The procuratorial agency immediately handed over the clues to the public security agency. After investigation, the public security organs quickly targeted the Internet celebrity anchor Liao.
It is reported that in October 2017, Liao signed a contract with a company in Hangzhou to become a live broadcaster, using the account "Momo07" to open a live broadcast room on the e-commerce platform to sell women's clothing and accessories. Standing at the forefront of the industry, she has accumulated millions of fans in just 3 years. With the accumulation of fans, Liao also formed a team of about 6 people with a clear division of labor.
However, starting in 2020, in order to obtain high commissions, Liao gradually went astray. Some "special" products appeared in her live broadcast room. The logos of these clothing were covered, and they were only hinted at with words such as "Fragrant Grandma" and "Donkey's Family". They were advertised as "the same style", and the selling price of the products was often only that of genuine stores. Dozens or even hundreds of percent of the goods are obviously counterfeit goods with luxury labels. Every time he cooperates with a counterfeit seller, Liao and his team can get a lot of appearance fees and commission income. In order to avoid risks, the live broadcast team will delete the live broadcast replay after each live broadcast with "fake goods".
More than 30 cooperative merchants are suspected of selling counterfeit goods
According to a Shanghai release, Liao, as an anchor, is a disseminator in the counterfeit sales process, but the actual source of goods is still provided by unscrupulous merchants. Police investigation found that among the hundreds of businesses that Liao cooperated with, nearly 30 were suspected of selling counterfeit luxury goods.
Among them, a jewelry company has cooperated with Liao more than once. According to the investigation, the company originally opened an online store on the e-commerce platform to sell its own products, and also tried a business model in which store staff live-streamed the goods themselves. However, due to the numerous online stores of the same type and the fierce competition, this store with no special features has always had mediocre performance.Subsequently, the person in charge of the company, He, began to sell some fake luxury accessories through the live broadcast room, thereby driving traffic and sales. After several attempts, He tasted the sweetness, so in order to exchange for greater traffic, He began to look for Internet celebrity anchors to bring goods for him.
According to Jiefang Daily, under Liao’s push, just one 2-hour live broadcast brought He Mou nearly 300,000 in sales, of which counterfeit luxury accessories accounted for 10%.
Live broadcast counterfeiting incidents are emerging one after another.
Top anchors are also overturning.
As live streaming becomes more and more popular, many related chaos are gradually emerging, and the live broadcast counterfeiting incident is one of them.
According to Beijing Daily , in May this year, an ear-mounted fan claiming to be co-branded by Supreme x GUZI pushed the well-known anchor Viya to the forefront of public opinion. This fan, sold for 198 yuan, was openly questioned by fashion bloggers as a counterfeit co-branded product rather than an American fashion brand.
Wei Ya once introduced in the live broadcast room that this is the first time that the trendy brand Supreme has co-branded a product with the Chinese brand Guzi. The price is only 198 yuan. She has repeatedly emphasized that the product is co-branded in the United States and is not a Hong Kong agent. The next day, fashion blogger Abestyle publicly questioned that the product was a copycat co-branded product. "GUZI is a very unknown small domestic brand, and the genuine Supreme has never been co-branded with any domestic brand, let alone sold for 198 (yuan)."
Weiya's live broadcast room responded, "This is Tmall The official waiter of International recommended it to me. It is not my ideal Supreme. I hope that the merchant can provide a full refund to everyone who buys it without returning it. "
According to Xiaohulu Big Data, in Wei Ya's store. During the live broadcast, 21,900 pieces of this "Supreme co-branded small fan" were sold. At a price of 198 yuan per piece, the sales reached 4.3362 million yuan.
In January 2020, the Italian affordable luxury brand ASH also issued a statement stating that many consumers and consumer channels complained that the "Viya high-end customized women's shoes" Taobao store counterfeited many products of the ASH brand, and sold them in "Viya high-end customized women's shoes" viya live broadcast room" sales. In response to this matter, ASH has entrusted a lawyer to urge relevant units and individuals to immediately stop illegal activities and take back and destroy plagiarized and counterfeit products that have been put into the market.
In March of the same year, the original design brand squarecircle also accused Wei Ya on Weibo that the style and design of a knitted cardigan sweater sold by Wei Ya in the live broadcast was completely similar to the product sold online by squarecircle on Taobao's official store in December 2019. It's just replaced with yarn of poor quality, which is actually a "copycat product".
In November last year, the head anchor of Kuaishou platform Simba was also questioned for selling fake products. At that time, professional anti-counterfeiter Wang Hai released a test report on social networks, pointing out that Simba was "selling fakes" and "deceiving fans", saying that the "Mingzhi" brand bird's nests sold by his apprentice were fake bird's nests and cost only There are 0.07 yuan.
On November 27 last year, Simba issued an apology statement, admitting that it was indeed selling only bird's nest flavored drinks, and expressed its willingness to refund nearly 62 million yuan to consumers.
According to upstream news, on May 23 this year, Weibo blogger "Technology Xiaoxin" released a video saying that the head anchor of the Kuaishou platform " Erlu couple" claimed to be worth 4,999 yuan when selling mobile phones in the live broadcast room. "Duowei 12Pro" can be purchased from them for only 899 yuan. It is absolutely authentic. This is a benefit for fans.
"Technology Xiaoxin" placed an order for one and found that the mobile phone received was completely different from the advertised model; only one of the three cameras in the upper right corner could work properly; he entered the mobile phone network access license information through the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology related website. , the queried information is inconsistent with the purchased mobile phone.
In addition, "Technology Xiaoxin" copied a 1G file into the phone, occupying 2.4G of memory, so it is inferred that this phone is a 4G+64G model priced at 599 yuan, not 8G+ as Erlu and his wife call it. 128GB.
In response, Kuaishou platform staff responded that the mobile phones sold by the "Erlu Couple" had quality problems. In order to protect the rights and interests of consumers, the platform will contact consumers who have paid, and consumers will receive a full refund within 3 working days without returning their mobile phones.
New rules for online live streaming have been officially implemented
Hosts carrying goods should bear the responsibility for review
my country's criminal law clearly stipulates that selling goods that are knowingly counterfeit registered trademarks is against the law. According to China Economic Weekly, Article 214 of my country’s Criminal Law stipulates that anyone who knowingly sells goods that are counterfeit registered trademarks and obtains a relatively large amount of illegal income or has other serious circumstances shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years and shall also or solely be fined. ; If the amount of illegal gains is huge or there are other particularly serious circumstances, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years, and shall also be fined. In addition, Internet celebrities or celebrities take advantage of their traffic to falsely promote products for sale during live broadcasts, which is an obvious act of defrauding consumers and they must bear corresponding civil liability for compensation.
This year, new regulations for online live broadcasts have also been officially implemented, and the responsibilities and obligations of anchors have been further clarified.
According to People's Daily Online , on May 25, the "Online Live Marketing Management Measures (Trial)" jointly issued by the Internet Information Office and the State Administration of Radio and Television were officially implemented. The "Measures" stipulate that live broadcast marketing platforms should sign agreements with live broadcast marketing personnel service agencies and live broadcast room operators, requiring them to standardize the recruitment, training, and management processes of live broadcast marketing personnel, and fulfill their obligations to the authenticity and legality of live broadcast marketing content, goods, and services. Sex review obligations.
After the promulgation of the "Measures", various platforms also attached great importance to it. Kuaishou e-commerce operations director Chen Xi revealed that the current platform does not provide live broadcast room operators with any product functions that can tamper with transactions or follow data at the product functional level; at the same time, the platform will also use the ability of big data risk control and identification to The operator of the live broadcast room identifies and intercepts this kind of fraudulent order and credit fraud organized offline. In addition, in order to further effectively safeguard the rights and interests of consumers, starting from the end of April this year, Kuaishou will store live broadcast content with e-commerce transactions for more than three years, so that transaction information can be traced back when transaction disputes arise.
China Fund News reporter Jin Youzhi
Source: China Fund News
