Summary: a many buys old Louis Vuitton bags, cuts them up and makes wallets (without any LV logos or representation that these are a LV product). He also makes videos about doing this. LV responds by sending out a private investigator and accusing the man of counterfeiting. The last half of the video is essentially marketing the creator's third-party Apple repair business.
> The video discusses a case where a man modified used Louis Vuitton handbags to create his own wallets, removing the Louis Vuitton logo and adding his own. Louis Vuitton accused him of counterfeiting and sent a private investigator to his home to issue a cease and desist order, prohibiting him from even showing others how to do this online. The video argues that the man had the right to repurpose the handbags he legally purchased, and that companies like Louis Vuitton are overstepping by trying to control how people use their own property. It draws parallels to the right to repair movement, stating that a person's ownership rights supersede a company's brand image concerns. The video also criticizes major tech companies like Apple for their own poor repair practices that can damage their brand image.
Awful summary. There is very clearly a LV logo right in the middle of the wallet. LV is famous for their leather being absolutely covered with their logo, it’d be rather difficult to make anything that didn’t show it. (Unless you really were just wanting to repurpose the leather and used acetone to dissolve the coating. But that would not get you that sweet sweet youtube ad revenue – not to mention the revenue he’s getting for these fake LV items, which he would not be able to match with just “plain leather wallet”)
Yeah, this was a confusing thing to me too, but apparently the logo making the pattern in the print is not the "logo" they are talking about. Yes, it is the logo printed on the leather, but LV products also have other markings using the logo that help identify it as an authentic LV product. There are other things like clasps, stitching, edge work, etc as well that identify authentic products. These are the things that have been removed as well as the stamped logo of this person's brand on it which quite clearly LV would never do. All of this is explained in the video linked elsewhere in this thread from the actual leather worker that the TFA video is glomming onto.
The LV logo is also displayed on clasps and whatnot, sure. But he's still selling a product that prominently displays the LV logo. His rationale seems to be that since repurposing fabric and leather is legal, it's also legal to build and sell products that clearly display the LV logo because it's printed on the repurposed fabric. I'm not sure whether this would actually hold up in court or not.
You're still confusing on what they are considering the logo by being the stamp of the brand claiming who made it. If anyone were to look at it and see the other logo clearly stamped on it, it would be obvious it was not an LV bag. Knock-offs use fake fabric but try to hide it be using the logo to make it look like it was an official LV bag while selling as if it was an LV bag. None of that is what this person is actually doing. There is no intent on scamming someone. This person clearly says this is something they made.
Sure, he's putting the Corter Leather logo on the product. But he's also using the trademarked LV logo. It's not as egregious as outright counterfeiting, where people build products trying to nearly exactly resemble a genuine LV product. But at the end of the day, he's still putting the LV logo front and center in the wallet. You don't automatically get to use another company's trademark just because you also put your own trademark on the product. Less egregious trademark infringement is still trademark infringement. Louis Vuitton was wrong to accuse him of counterfeiting, but they can accurately accuse him of trademark infringement.
It sounds like his rationale is that he's only repurposing the material on the cut-up LV bag, which makes prominently displaying the LV trademark legal. I'm pretty skeptical he'd prevail if this actually went to court.
>The last half of the video is essentially marketing the creator's third-party Apple repair business.
This made me smile. That's like watching a lock-picking lawyer video about his side project and saying "and then for some reason he picks a lock at the end of the video".
Or a certain warvlogger who shares my first name. He puts his combat experience to use giving insight but it is so cringeworthy that he's always trying to hard sell some caffeinated gum. (Myself I think Singapore has it right about gum)
