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SAN FRANCISCO — Three US fashion designers -- Krista Perry, Larissa Martinez and Jay Baron -- have sued Chinese fast-fashion company Shein which is valued at a staggering $66 billion, for allegedly stealing their creative works.
In the lawsuit, they claimed that Shein produced, distributed, and sold exact copies of their creative work.
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=1]It alleged that Shein’s practices violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
The law was enacted in 1970 and was first used against the American mafia.
“For all the scrutiny given to TikTok, it’s surprising that Congress has not considered more dramatic action against the Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein,” said the three independent designers.
The brand sells more clothing than any other in the world and recently raised capital at a staggering valuation.
“Like TikTok, Shein’s business model depends on collecting a shocking amount of data from its customers -- which it then reverse-engineers into fashion trends,” said the lawsuit.
“Shein is actually a greater societal threat than TikTok -- because it contributes mightily to serious problems beyond data security and privacy, such as environmental damage, sweatshop (or worse) labor conditions, tax avoidance, child safety, as well as the subject of this lawsuit, large-scale and systematic intellectual property theft from U.S. designers large and small,” read the lawsuit.
The designers said that Shein is allegedly stealing independent artists’ works “over and over again, as part of a long and continuous pattern of racketeering”, and using artificial intelligence.
Shein told TechCrunch that it takes such claims seriously and will “vigorously defend” itself.
Shein is among the fastest-growing online retailers on the planet.