Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. this week charged in federal court that third-party sellers on Amazon.com sell counterfeit or unauthorized copies of Warner Bros. videos. The movie studio has asked the court to immediately and permanently enjoin defendants from reproducing, distributing, selling or shipping copies of Warner’s video products.
Warner Bros. “has suffered and continues to suffer irreparable harm and damage,” the company says in one of the complaints filed with United States District Court for the Central District of California. A copy of that complaint was obtained by Internet Retailer.
The company also says in that complaint, filed July 30 against Amazon seller Todd Beckman, that it wants an “accounting from each defendant of all monies generated from the promotion, display, sale and offer for sale of the defendants’ goods and services.”
The complaint notes that there are more than 2 million independent sellers that sell goods through the Amazon.com marketplace, and that some of them sell counterfeit or unauthorized goods. It doesn’t say how many sellers deal with counterfeit or unauthorized goods. But its complaint against Beckman lists 10 unidentified co-defendants and it has filed a total of 19 lawsuits against other sellers, according to Andrew Coombs, a lawyer in Glendale, CA, representing Warner Bros.
An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment, and neither Beckham nor an attorney representing him could be reached.
Warner Bros. says Beckman and other defendants sell the counterfeit and unauthorized copies of video content in several formats, including video cassettes, video laser discs, DVDs, video compact discs and Bluray discs.
Amazon is No. 1 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.