Trademark and Copyright Scams Targeting Events and How to Fight Them
This is part of a continuing effort to alert copyright and trademark owners to sophisticated scams targeting their IP and suggest effective legal strategies for responding.
Strategic use of trademark and copyright tools can combat increasingly sophisticated and egregious scams targeting event websites.
The Lutzker & Lutzker team recently shut down a fake website impersonating the 40-year-old FilmFest DC. The fraudulent site — filmfestdcsummer.com – appropriated not just the trademark but also the copyrighted website design and information (including names of principals) of the legitimate site — filmfestdc.org — and sold tickets to a non-existent event. Although proceedings pursuant to the Uniform Domain Resolution Policy (UDRP) administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) were available to get the fraudulent domain voided, more urgent relief was needed. We used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to send an abuse report and takedown notices to the site’s Registrar, which immediately deactivated the fake site and all popular extensions (for example, .net, .org, .info). The UDRP process remains an available option for permanent relief, although keeping up with these fluid scams can be like a game of whack-a-mole.
This is an escalating problem as scammers increasingly build websites that mimic real events and sell fake tickets, capitalizing on event organizers’ goodwill by using identical or similar names, often adding or subtracting verbiage, using common misspellings and rearranging words. Users often find ticketing websites masquerading under those names, populated with content copied directly from the real event sites such as logos, schedules and speaker biographies, evoking an effect of legitimacy. Some of these scams provide fake tickets, and some simply collect credit card information. Similar scammers purportto resell tickets at a discounted price.
This fraud is sometimes achieved using a technique called “typosquatting,” where a scammer registers a domain name with just one different letter or character, for example,“eventtikcets.com” instead of “eventtickets.com.” When Celine Dion’s team started selling tickets to her concerts, there were more than 200 fraudulent websites, and fans trying to go to celinedion.com ended up at the fraudulent “celinedion.co.” Similarly, Taylor Swift’s concerts have been targeted by these scams, with hundreds of ticket holders turned away at concerts for having fraudulent tickets.
The widespread use of generative AI has made this easier to pull off at scale. And the volume and sophistication of these schemes have increased, despite defensive measures. These scams extend beyond the music industry, as a political midterm event and the Olympics were also subject to widespread fraudulent ticketing schemes. In the art world, not only film festivals need to be attentive, but museums and speaking events selling tickets to upcoming exhibitions or events need to be on high alert for scammers.
In addition to the harm inflicted upon ticket purchasers,organizers lose ticket revenue and suffer reputational harm. Accordingly, event organizers should treat this as a trademark and copyright enforcement issue and monitor confusingly similar marks, domain names and websites. Registering trademarks is also advantageous—it creates a legal presumption of ownership, deters others from using the mark and enables suit in federal court. Protecting the unique look, feel and content of websites under copyright law is also critical. Conversely, customers, subscribers and patrons should be alerted to these disturbing developments and strongly encouraged to ensure they are purchasing tickets directly and only through official sites by checking the URL very carefully before entering payment information.
The lesson from these and similar scams are that trademark and copyright registration and defensive domain registration (that is, registering not only the specific domain but other popular extensions) should be considered in tandem to ensure full brand protection.
If you are a current Lutzker & Lutzker trademark or copyrightclient or another wanting our assistance, be assured that we are monitoring relevant developments and will help with prompt and effective responses on your behalf. For assistance, please contact Jeannette Carmadella at jeannette@lutzker.com. For further reading from our website on the topics discussed here, see the following insights and IP Bits & Pieces®: Trademark Scams Revisited, A New Year’s Warning Worth Repeating Regarding Trademark Scams and our Trademark FAQs.