After years of dealing with mental health issues, Kelly Robinson-Key found writing poetry helped her through the dark times. From there has emerged a cottage industry based around her inspirational “pocket poems”.
But now the Wales-based poet has found herself “mentally drained” from fighting waves of counterfeit products that have copied her work, and are frequently for sale on some of the biggest online marketplaces.
Robinson-Key, known as Kelly The Poet, estimates she may have lost thousands of pounds in sales because of poor quality copies.
“I am exhausted – I never rest as I am either looking after my children, or working on my business. I am mentally drained from … chasing sales I know I cannot fight,” she says.
She is one of the many small businesses affected by the prolific and growing problem of counterfeiting, where companies, frequently based abroad, lift an original idea and sell their own version.
More typically associated with designer handbags, or knock-off jeans, the problem is much wider than that. Fake perfumes have posed health risks, while some knock-off children’s toys have been found to have high levels of lead.
For Robinson-Key, the problem has hammered her income and meant she has to constantly fight overseas producers she doesn’t feel she can defeat.
She started writing poetry in 2017, which, she says, helped her deal with postnatal depression. She turned this into a successful business running out of a “poetry hut” in the back garden of her home in Carmarthenshire in south-west Wales. Among her products are cards with poems and original artwork, packaged in muslin bags, as well as books, mugs and coasters. The cards, printed in the UK, are sold on her site and on Etsy.
A few months ago, a follower on Facebook queried whether a product that had been advertised was one of hers. She then discovered the vast scale of counterfeits.
“After a quick Google search, we found my images being used by several companies selling my pocket poems for either cheaper, or sometimes triple, the cost,” she says.
“We ordered a pack out of curiosity. It came from China and is a complete copy. It has been rewritten, as the font is different, but the artwork, poetry and my business name ‘Kelly The Poet’ has been copied. The cards are terrible quality.”
Robinson-Key, who is the full-time carer of her disabled son, says she does not have the “time nor the mental capability” to fight the sellers. She owns the copyright for the products in the UK, she says.
“After speaking to many other small business owners in the same boat, it seems that it is near-impossible to fight this. Some of these sellers are selling hundreds of my card packs. This means thousands of pounds are being taken from us.
“The money I get from my business pays for my son’s care and we rely on it heavily. The money these companies are making could be helping my son,” she says. “If I can raise awareness, then that will be great, as many people won’t know they are buying stolen goods.”
The problem of counterfeit goods sold on the web has been growing consistently in recent years, especially since the pandemic saw a boom in e-commerce, says Faye McConnell, a lawyer specialising in intellectual property at law firm Browne Jacobson.
“It’s growing because it’s easier to hide online than in a bricks and mortar shop,” she says.
“Online they can do it a lot better. People [the fraudsters] … can see when something’s taken off [in popularity] on social media, and they’re able to move very quickly in terms of copying.”
A report by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) last year said that consumers were becoming increasingly wary of fakes, but almost one-third would still buy them if they thought the cost of the original was too high.
McConnell says that fake goods, as well as often being poor quality, are frequently linked to organised crime, and the workers that produce them can be forced to work in poor conditions.
Robinson-Key highlighted a large number of counterfeits sold on some of the main internet marketplaces – Amazon, eBay, AliExpress and Wish.
Amazon says it has taken down a number of similar products this year and has removed the new ones highlighted.
“Amazon strictly prohibits counterfeit and IP infringing products in our store, and we have proactive measures to prevent them from being listed,” it says. “From the moment a seller lists a product for sale, our advanced technology continually scans for potential counterfeit, fraud and abuse – including future changes submitted for the product.”
AliExpress, the Chinese e-commerce site, says it has also removed listings of copies after being contacted by the Observer.
“AliExpress is committed to the intellectual property rights protection. We maintain a robust ‘notice and take down’ mechanism, as well as a designated email channel to comply with our obligation as an e-commerce platform,” it says.
Wish, a San Francisco-based marketplace, took down a product highlighted by the Observer and says it is committed to “combating the listing, sale and distribution of counterfeit goods”.
EBay says it will work with Robinson-Key on the problem, and that the sale of counterfeit items on its sites is prohibited. “We proactively block millions of counterfeit items every year,” it tells us.
“In the rare instance that a counterfeit item is listed, intellectual property rights owners can use our ‘VeRO Program’ to report listings to us. We will then investigate, and take the appropriate action, which may include ending listings and suspending seller accounts.”
But as well as the big players, there are numerous smaller sites also selling knockoffs of Robinson-Key’s products. “I dread to think the money they are making from my work,” she says.
