Ariana McLimore
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Livestream shopping, where buyers and sellers transact over real-time video, is growing in the United States, but technology to crack down on counterfeit goods has so far not caught up, leaving the market vulnerable to flooding with counterfeit goods. The patent attorney said that the situation was
Livestream shopping has taken China’s retail industry by storm, popularized by e-commerce sites like Alibaba.com and TikTok’s sister company Douyin.
In the United States, TikTok sellers peddle jewelry, used Louis Vuitton handbags, $2 lip gloss and more during hours-long video sessions. A seller’s stream may have dozens to thousands of viewers asking questions about product materials, price, and availability.
Live video piracy is difficult to track down. For the lawyers and software companies that police the Internet, e-commerce infringement enforcement can often feel like a game of “whack-a-mole” as the number of violations mounts. As an example, software company Red Points found at least 4.6 million cases of copyright infringement worldwide in 2023, up from 4 million the year before.
Amazon, the largest online marketplace in the United States, identified and seized 7 million counterfeit products from marketplace sellers in 2023, up from 6 million in 2022, according to the company’s Brand Protection Report. did.
Luke DeMarte, an intellectual property attorney at Michael Best & Friedrich, said live streaming “is a breeding ground for infringement until we catch up on the discovery and enforcement of this form of sale,” referring to live shopping.
Both TikTok and Amazon said they have advanced technology in place to stop merchants from selling fake products. TikTok said it uses a combination of algorithms and humans to monitor live videos, and Amazon said it uses humans to monitor livestream shopping.
Livestream sales on the web hold promise. Americans will spend $1.32 trillion on U.S. e-commerce this year, according to research firm eMarketer. As traditional retailers such as Macy’s, Inditex’s Zara, Nordstrom, and Kohl’s adopt live commerce marketing techniques, live commerce could reach 5% of their spending by 2026, according to Coresight Research. It is said that there is.
Some lawyers and the brands they represent are using machine learning software to search e-commerce platforms for potential infringement in photos, product descriptions, and advertisements, but live video poses additional challenges. bring.
“By the time you see an infringing product being sold on a TikTok livestream and it’s taken down, you should expect there to have been at least some sales in that time,” DeMarte said.
DeMarte and other U.S. trademark attorneys say that despite the growth of new technology aimed at detecting infringement, the live nature of livestream transactions makes it difficult to identify and weed out counterfeit and counterfeit products. He said it was difficult.
Kari Kammel, director of Michigan State University’s Center for Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection, said retailers that launch shoppable videos should “make sure they have mechanisms in place to prevent criminal activity or monitor criminal activity in real time. We need to confirm that.”
Lawyers and software companies say artificial intelligence and algorithms can now spot still images and text that violate a brand’s copyright or trademark. Similarly, e-commerce platforms often use AI and algorithms to block third-party vendors from listing counterfeit products.
However, technology to scan for violations in videos is lacking.
Small business attorney Michelle Murphy said she receives five to 10 notifications daily from AI vendors tracking intellectual property infringement across still images listed on Etsy, eBay, Amazon, and TikTok. . Of the hundreds of warnings she received, none flagged her for infringement on shoppable videos.
Removing counterfeit products from e-commerce sites is critical to the future of major U.S. retailers. A TikTok Shop spokesperson said TikTok has technology that can detect potential breaches within live video streams. If content is flagged as infringing, it will be removed and sent to human moderators for review, a spokesperson said.
Some third-party software vendors said they are currently working with TikTok Shop, typically sharing information about suspected counterfeiters and identifying and cracking down on instances of infringement on the platform’s live shopping videos.
Amazon expanded shoppable video to streaming platforms Prime Video and Freevee in April. Its live feed covers a variety of product categories, including electronic accessories, apparel, and home goods promoted by influencers and reality TV stars.
Amazon uses machine learning to scan its website for counterfeit products. However, the company said the live streaming feature is managed manually. The e-commerce giant requires live streamers to only display products available on Amazon.com that are subject to machine learning scans.
Other retailers that host livestream shopping, including Dyson, only sell products under their own brands or for which they have a license to sell.
(Reporting by Arianna McLimore in New York City; Editing by Anna Driver)