A brand owner’s perspective: inside WWE’s multi-pronged anti-counterfeiting strategy

Matthew Winterroth, vice president of intellectual property at World Wrestling Entertainment Inc, reveals how his company protects the integrity of its brands through close collaboration with industry, platforms and law enforcement

World Wrestling Entertainment Inc (WWE) is a unique company. With a large domestic and international footprint and separate business segments covering TV/direct-to-consumer scripted and non-scripted programming, consumer products, live events and music, WWE is the ultimate mash-up of reality, drama, sitcom and sports. Its programming:

• is available in more than 1 billion households worldwide;
• is broadcast to more than 180 countries in 30 languages;
• has more than 1 billion social media followers across platforms;
• is distributed among more than 100 licensees selling products in more than 85 countries; and
• is performed live 365 days a year, with no off-season – unlike other sports properties.

Moreover, WWE is the exclusive owner of all of its intellectual property, putting it in a unique position to maintain, monitor and enforce its vast library in-house. This includes its corporate branding wordmarks and logos (eg, WWE, WCW, NWO), talent/performer names/personas (eg, ROMAN REIGNS and UNDERTAKER), show/event names (eg, RAW, SMACKDOWN, NXT and WRESTLEMANIA) and copyrighted audiovisual programming and product designs.

While piracy of its audiovisual content is undoubtedly a key concern for WWE, the counterfeiting of its trademarks is an equally important area of concentration. Preventing the latter is instrumental, not only with regard to protecting the integrity of the brand and addressing health and safety issues, but also when it comes to preserving and fostering the various partnerships it has – licensing, sponsorship, community relations and otherwise.

A robust strategy with multiple stakeholders

WWE employs a very robust and aggressive strategy to monitor and enforce the protection of its intellectual property, balancing its capabilities with its budget, territorial operations, partnership desires and other factors.

The company understands that its battle against counterfeiting cannot be won alone. To that end, WWE’s small IP legal team works in tandem with several vendors to tackle its counterfeiting issues globally. WWE’s main issues these days concern online e-commerce marketplaces, both large and small. It monitors for counterfeiting on:

• social media platforms (eg, Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, WeChat and Telegram);
• made-to-order/print-on-demand sites (eg, Redbubble, Teechip and other Shopify-powered sites);
• larger, more well-known domestic and international e-commerce sites (eg, Amazon, Flipkart and AliExpress); and
• most recently, on NFT platforms (eg, OpenSea, Rarible, Coinbase and SuperRare).

With respect to its vendors, WWE does not ascribe to a one-size-fits-all approach; each company that it collaborates with has specific expertise in a narrow field. A vendor that concentrates on harvesting counterfeit listings from large e-commerce platforms is distinct from another with a particular focus on and strength in the intricacies of counterfeit activity on social media platforms.

While other brand owners might prefer an all-in-one approach, WWE has found that so long as its takedown data can be harmonised, working with smaller, nimble vendors can offer significant advantages – provided that the collaboration is a two-way street – and that the more it can teach a vendor about its product offerings, authentication measures and demonstrable trends between authentic and counterfeit products, the more beneficial the relationship will be for both parties.

Aligning with industry

Collaboration takes many forms. WWE also understands that aligning with other industry groups, companies and even competitors in the fight against counterfeits is a wise business decision that leads to tangible results. Over the years, WWE has seen its memberships in the International Anti-counterfeiting Coalition and INTA pay dividends, providing exposure to new vendors, law enforcement contacts, key personnel at various marketplaces and counterparts at other brands experiencing the same issues with the same parties on the same platforms.

WWE has found success working with other companies in the sports, media and entertainment space by:

• conducting shared market surveys to investigate brick-and-mortar counterfeit marketplaces;
• coordinating raid actions to seize counterfeit goods; and
• collaborating with licensees on investigations to halt the manufacture of counterfeit goods in its legitimate factories with so-called ‘third shift’ or ‘ghost shift’ manufacturing issues.

Online marketplaces: friend not foe

It is also important to take advantage of the different types of tools that various marketplaces offer to combat counterfeits on their respective platforms.

WWE has worked with Redbubble, a global online marketplace, to continuously keep the latter up to date on the various brands under the WWE umbrella so that it can proactively work to remove print-on-demand campaigns on its platform. Similarly, WWE takes advantage of Meta’s Brand Rights Protection tool to automate monitoring for counterfeit activity on Facebook and Instagram. Additionally, the company benefits from Amazon’s continued development of ongoing relationships with curious brands to partner with their Brand Registry and Project Zero tools to swiftly report and remove counterfeit listings on their various platforms worldwide.

Criminal suits are the most powerful deterrent

WWE finds that partnering with law enforcement at the local, state, federal and international levels is a supremely important step in the fight against counterfeits. No matter how many counterfeit listings a brand can remove or civil suits it can bring against counterfeit sellers, collaboration with law enforcement on a criminal case against an individual or enterprise selling illegitimate and unauthorised goods is the most powerful deterrent. This is why WWE maintains strong relationships with customs agencies worldwide and speciality law enforcement arms such as Homeland Security Investigations and London’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit and takes consistent opportunities to educate wherever it can at the local level.

Recently, WWE worked with Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit on a matter concerning counterfeit championship title belts being sold on its platform. Like any successful relationship, this joint effort took hard work and plenty of preparation on both sides to develop a connection and yield results. While the original plan was to bring a joint civil matter in federal court against several counterfeit Amazon sellers, the investigation also elicited data supporting a criminal referral to the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey against one of the sellers with a domestic nexus. Fortunately, WWE and Amazon packaged an enticing referral to law enforcement that led to indictments. While both of these matters are currently ongoing, they certainly speak to the power of collaboration at the private and public levels.

This collaboration also provides a viable model for others to follow. Indeed, WWE hopes that other platforms with e-commerce capabilities emulate and mirror those tools that Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit has created and championed. This would remove the cost barrier of litigation that SMEs and even larger companies face, and provide a way for e-commerce companies to better assist in the eradication of counterfeits on their respective platforms – a win-win situation for all affected parties.

Joining forces

The struggle that brands face against counterfeit merchandise is certainly a war of attrition; no one solution will solve all the issues. Instead, it is incumbent on brands to use all available means, tools and relationships to combat this threat. These collaborations may seem antithetical to brands accustomed to a more private approach or used to doing things internally their way. However, a more open, collaborative approach allows brands to learn about new methodologies and share costs while simultaneously building relationships with key parties – necessary steps to combat fakes in this rapidly evolving age.