Shure Incorporated has announced that an October 2018 police raid on a factory in China found Enping Soundpu Electronics Equipment (also operating as Voxpu Electronics Equipment) manufacturing counterfeit products.
Initiated by Shure alongside the Enping Public Security Bureau (PSB) and Enping Administration of Industry and Commerce (AIC), the raid found counterfeit Shure (as well as Sennheiser, Yamaha and Harman) products including wireless microphones and receivers, consoles, amplifiers and processors.
Shure has taken steps towards criminal prosecution against the owner and managers of Soundpu based on continued counterfeiting activities and disregard for intellectual property rights, having also been fined in August 2018 by the AIC after counterfeit Shure wireless microphones were found at the factory during a routine market investigation carried out in April 2018.
“Counterfeiting is an ongoing problem for the audio industry, and we remain vigilant in our anti-counterfeiting efforts,” said Chris Schyvinck, Shure president and CEO. “Shure is deeply committed to protecting our valued customers from low-quality counterfeits and ensuring that our customers experience only the quality of a genuine Shure product every time they purchase a product bearing the Shure name.”
Sennheiser, Yamaha and Harman are to assist Shure with the forthcoming legal action against Soundpu.
“Our collective intellectual property has been compromised, and we greatly appreciate the cooperation of Sennheiser, Yamaha and Harman in this matter,” added Schyvinck. “We encourage customers to buy all of these professional audio products only from authorised dealers.”
“Counterfeit products do not just exasperate customers by delivering a bad experience that does not reflect the promise of the brand,” said Daniel Sennheiser, co-CEO of Sennheiser. “These cheap counterfeits also fall short in terms of quality and in some cases, dangerously so. This damages the industry as a whole and we welcome joint action against violations in order to better protect consumers.”
“Yamaha has long taken various measures against counterfeit products such as civil actions, police raids, suspensions from customs, and placed enlightening advertisements globally, particularly in China,” added Takuya Nakata, president and representative executive officer of Yamaha Corporation. “We have done so because we firmly believe that these activities will not only protect our valued customers and end users from low-quality counterfeits but also lead to an improvement of reliability and trust in our brands.
This story originally appeared on Pro Sound News Europe.
