A mom from the UK has been ordered to reimburse the £140,000 ($171,000) she earned from selling fake band T-shirts or she'll go to prison.
As reported by the Metro, Johanna Donnelly, 48, made a significant amount of money from creating unlicensed merchandise for bands such as Led Zeppelin, The Stone Roses, The Stranglers, The Clash, and Foo Fighters.
The mother used her own website and eBay account to market the products to fans, and also utilized the rockers' famous trademarks to attract more customers.
However, her demise came after trading standards experts in Newport, South Wales, tested some of the merchandise and discovered that she had been using a fake company name to sell the items.
The court learned that over a three-year period, Donnelly made a jaw-dropping $304,151. However, she is now ordered to pay back $170,000.
The Paypal sale figures for shirts that violated the copyright rules amounted to $14,121.88 while another account displayed sales of $1,898.84. The last sale recorded was a shirt featuring the group The Clash on May 2019, according to the Daily Mail.
The outlet shared that Donnelly pleaded guilty to 20 offenses of selling and infringing trademark articles and was eventually sentenced to a six-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months.
She is also required to complete 150 hours of unpaid work and a 10-day rehabilitation activity requirement.
In addition to this, the assets investigators managed to discover $172,358 in retrievable assets - to which Judge David Wynn Morgan summoned Donnelly to return the sum in three months. If she doesn't, she will serve five months in prison.
Furthermore, it has been reported that the Cardiff Crown Court heard the mother answer "no comment" to all questions asked of her during her hearing.
The news comes after Harry Styles filed a lawsuit against internet sellers as a way of stopping people from trading unauthorized merchandise on social media.
Billboard Pro reported that lawyers for the 28-year-old 'As It Was' singer filed the legal action in a Chicago federal court, with a statement that read: "Plaintiff is forced to file this action to combat defendants' counterfeiting of its registered trademarks, as well as to protect unknowing consumers from purchasing counterfeit products over the Internet."
They disclosed that the products - which also appear on marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon - make it "difficult for consumers to distinguish such stores from an authorized retailer".
In the court filing, the award-winning artist's legal team has also requested a thorough dismantling of the articles by documenting specific web pages, and not actual merchandisers or people.
They also added that many of the bogus items are from online brokers based mostly in China and "other foreign jurisdictions with lax trademark enforcement systems".
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