Shame on you: Designer determined to stop fakes

Paris – Fake merchandise is a constant battle for designer labels. Luxury footwear designer Christian Louboutin has now adopted a ‘zero tolerance’ policy in a bid to address the problem.

The recently launched stopfakelouboutin.com website features a video in which a truck is driven over a pile of counterfeit shoes.

‘I hope that a little motion-picture destruction…is picked up virally,’ Harley Lewin, partner at McCarter & English LLP, who represents Louboutin on intellectual property issues, tells news agency Reuters.

The website also contains a list of online retailers that are selling fakes. ‘When we find these sites, we take them down,’ the site says.

LS:N Global recently reported in an Insight News article that, in Europe, pressure from luxury-goods companies has led the European Commission to rule that such companies can restrict the online sales of their products to retailers with bricks-and-mortar stores. For a different view, read our Inform article with Professor Renée Richardson Gosline, who believes fakes can be good for the industry.