Live Nation merch arm sues sellers over fake Nirvana and Bruno Mars goods

Merch Traffic, the merchandise licensing arm of Live Nation Entertainment, has sued a group of anonymous online sellers it accuses of moving counterfeit merchandise for Nirvana, Bruno Mars, The Notorious B.I.G. and other acts. The complaint, filed August 5 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, brings two counts under the Lanham Act: trademark infringement and counterfeiting, and false designation of origin.

Merch Traffic describes itself as the exclusive US licensing agent for Avenged Sevenfold, Bruno Mars, Eazy-E, Harry Styles, Nirvana, The Notorious B.I.G. and The Cure. It is seeking injunctive relief, an accounting of the sellers' profits, up to treble damages, or statutory damages of $2 million per counterfeit trademark, and wants the court to order Amazon, eBay, Temu and Walmart to stop displaying the listings. The complaint alleges the defendants operate out of China or other jurisdictions with weak trademark enforcement, moving funds through offshore accounts to avoid judgments.

The complaint cites OECD data putting global trade in counterfeit and pirated goods at $467 billion, or 2.3 percent of all imports, and names China as the primary source of those goods.

The case adds to a wave of anti-counterfeiting suits in music but targets a different channel than most recent ones. Merch Traffic's own April suit for Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, along with recent HYBE and Bravado cases for BTS and A$AP Rocky, targeted bootleggers working specific tour dates outside venues. This complaint instead goes after e-commerce storefronts, using the "Schedule A" model of naming anonymous sellers collectively that's become common in the Northern District of Illinois.

One of the artists named in the suit has been through this before: Harry Styles filed his own Schedule A complaint in the same Chicago federal court in January 2023, a case that ended two months later in a mix of default and consent judgments against unauthorized sellers. That case was handled by the same firm now representing Merch Traffic, Chicago's Greer, Burns & Crain.

Marketplaces themselves have also become targets: the estates of MF DOOM and Twenty One Pilots both sued Temu last year over counterfeit merchandise sold on the platform. The suit lands the same month its parent company agreed to buy into three venues in Prague and Live Nation-backed Veeps cut editorial staff at several music titles.