counterfeit

Already three (3!) Methaphone counterfeits have popped up. It has prompted a little reflection...

Counterfeit means 'against making' from the French CONTRA and FAIRE. That seems to get at one issue. 

The first one took the name, the logo, all the images and opened the store methaphone.shop. That's kind of lame, also illegal, and so we asked them to take it down. Cat posted her video May 15, and did their first post one day later. They were hustling!   

Others are more nuanced. They saw the popularity, created a new brand name and opened stores. NoPhone and Neophone are examples of this. 

NoPhone

This person's in Germany. Registered his domain May 23, launched his TikTok on May 25, 10 days after the methaphone video took off. He's selling for $60, as well as three limited editions for more than $1,000,000.  
 

NeoPhone 

This one is out of the UK. First post on the May 21 and domain registered on the same day. The one tries to draft off of methaphone press by using the logos from papers like the Daily Mail that covered the methaphone. So clearly some risk of confusion. Also, they claim to be The Original Clear Phone, which seems both incorrect and potentially misleading.

They also use Cat's video in their first video. That means they're aware what they were doing.

Still deciding how to think about these two. We'll keep you updated!