Credit: Ti GongWhile it may seem like a lucrative business, dealing in counterfeit Disney merchandise comes with the risk of getting caught and hauled off to jail. This is a lesson that a Chinese influencer has learned the hard way. As the old saying goes, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”
It was reported today that six people will be charged for their involvement in selling counterfeit Disney dolls with Mickey Mouse shape patterns deemed to infringe on commodities, according to Jing’an District’s public prosecutor.
A social media influencer in the Shanghai area held a lives stream auction where they publicly sold rare LinaBell dolls from Shanghai Disneyland Park. LinaBell is one of the latest characters added to the Duffy and Friends toy line, which is highly popular overseas. The dolls go for 200 yuan or roughly 30 dollars USD and typically sell out as buyers love rare dolls they can’t get at the Parks in the States.
The influencer was selling them at a surprisingly low cost of 40 yuan, which led to a total of 3 million yuan in sales. That’s 436,300 dollars USD, enough to get the influencer in big trouble with the House of Mouse.
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The influencer should have thought twice before selling the counterfeit Disney dolls through a live stream, as it was a straightforward way to get noticed. Eventually, a worker for the public prosecutor of Jing’an caught wind of the illegal sales, and those involved were arrested last August, and police seized over 800 counterfeit products.
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Although the influencer claimed they never mentioned the copyrighted LinaBell name or even that they were from Disney Parks, the Mickey Mouse logo was all prosecutors needed to convict them. The defendant pleaded guilty, landing him a sentence of a year and ten months in jail. Along with jail time, they will have to pay a fine of a whopping 800,000 yuan, which is roughly 116,470 USD.
So if you’re considering starting your own counterfeit Disney doll store, you might want to reevaluate your business plan.
Have you ever purchased a counterfeit Disney product? Let us know in the comments. Don’t worry; we won’t tell anyone.