14 DAY TRIAL // $3 billion may not be enough for Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, Apple's newest celebrity employees. The two want to start a war against Chinese knock-off makers. Or at least the ones that are using the "b" logo to sell fake Beats headphones.
According to the Celebrity gossip website TMZ, who got their hands on the court filings, Dr. Dre wants a court order to stop all sales of the fake headphones. Besides that, he hopes to get ownership of all the domain names and all the money they've made so far.
The fake Beats Headphones that copy the $300 ones are usually sold as low as $5. The Chinese websites making money off of this business openly admit their products are fake or "replica of Beats" and so far they got away with that.
Beats lawyers want to make sure they will get some money off of the manufacturers so they asked for $2 million for each and every use of the BEATS Trademarks and $100,000 per domain name.
The lawsuits has been filed on July 9, 2014 in the Norther District of Illinois.
Dr. Dre is the first Hip-Hop billionaire after his company was sold to Apple. The luxury headphone maker has an estimated revenue of $1.5 billion last year alone.
Beats Electronics was founded by Dr. Dre in 2008. Their patented solutions for music makers and studio professionals was patented as Beats Audio and it is a combination of software technology, streaming music subscription and some expensive headphones and earbuds. The company was co-founded by Jimmy Iovine, who was, till Apple's acquisition the CEO of Beats Electronics and Chairman of Universal Music Group's Interscope Geffen A&M Records.
Back in May, Apple released a PR document explaining their strategy on Beats. At the time, Tim Cook said that "Music is such an important part of all of our lives and holds a special place within our hearts at Apple. That’s why we have kept investing in music and are bringing together these extraordinary teams so we can continue to create the most innovative music products and services in the world."
Apple agreed to acquire both Beats Music and Beats Electronics for $3 billion. $2.6 billion was the price of purchase and approximately $400 million will be invested over time.