RZA has filed a lawsuit against multiple e-commerce stores that he claims illegally sold products with the Wu-Tang Clan logo on them. In documents obtained by Complex, the rapper is suing the alleged bootleggers for trademark infringement, counterfeiting, and false designation of origin. It’s also believed that the stores, who are seemingly running their business from China, used the rap group’s brand to convince buyers that they were selling authentic Wu-Tang Clan merchandise.
“Many defendants also deceive unknowing consumers by using the Wu-Tang Clan Trademarks without authorization within the content, text, and/or meta tags of their e-commerce stores to attract various search engines crawling the Internet looking for e-commerce stores relevant to consumer searches for Wu-Tang Clan products,” the documents read. “Other e-commerce stores operating under the Seller Aliases omit using the Wu-Tang Clan Trademarks in the item title to evade enforcement efforts while using strategic item titles and descriptions that will trigger their listings when consumers are searching for Wu-Tang Clan products.”
RZA wants to block the stores from selling the inauthentic merchandise in the future. He is seeking $2 million for the use of Wu-Tang trademarks, or all profits and damages for trademark infringement. He also wants to ask companies like Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress to stop promoting these products.
The lawsuit comes after RZA teamed up for Flatbush Zombies for a pair of tracks: “Quentin Tarantino” and “Plug Addicts.”