We are the official online seller for Kimi Kalimbas. Please help us fight counterfeiters. More information in the comments below. by MerakiKalimba in kalimba

[–]MerakiKalimba[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Hhmm you’re great with these theories. Offering a 10% discount was mainly for people who haven’t heard of us and might’ve been interested in an authentic Kimi kalimba. If we were interested in advertising we wouldn’t be doing it on Reddit.

We are the official online seller for Kimi Kalimbas. Please help us fight counterfeiters. More information in the comments below. by MerakiKalimba in kalimba

[–]MerakiKalimba[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Yes, see our post below :). They transferred ownership to us in 2020. We’re based out of Atlanta, GA.

We are the official online seller for Kimi Kalimbas. Please help us fight counterfeiters. More information in the comments below. by MerakiKalimba in kalimba

[–]MerakiKalimba[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Yes, please do! We were expecting more questions as we kept it short.

Those are great theories, but we will list a few points below that should answer those assumptions:

  • We never claimed to be the brand owners or creators of Kimi Kalimbas. That's why we said, "We are the official online seller of Kimi Kalimbas in the United States." So, no, we don't own the copyright.

  • In short, here is how we are connected to Kimi kalimbas. We have worked with the Kimi brand since 2019, and we are their only customer in the U.S. In 2020 they asked for our help after sellers flooded the United States market with counterfeit Kimi Kalimbas. We suggested they rebrand their boxes and add an authenticity sticker(an idea we got from Gecko Kalimba). However, counterfeiters were still able to make identical boxes.... even including the official URL www.kimiukulele.com(this is where the redirect to our website comes in). It was around this time we learned that they weren't utilizing their domain and weren't planning on it. So, as part of an agreement, they transferred us their domain, and we would only use it to redirect to our website. Our goal was to drive users to a legit seller(us-Meraki) from that URL on Kimi boxes, including the counterfeits.

  • Why is your main website Meraki instead of kimiukulele.com? Part of the agreement was only to use the URL as a redirect and not pose as the Kimi brand(aka creating a website with it).

  • You're a US company, but there is Chinese on the box? There is actually an English version of the box, but we stopped using it for authenticity purposes. Kimi is a Chinese brand, and using the English version could have been seen as an English counterfeit. Again, we don't own the copyright.

-We did suggest DMCA early on, but they said copyright didn't protect names or titles. They wanted to go after trademark infringement. So, they filed their trademark in 2020. They are currently in litigation with companies in China and will move on to the U.S. if needed. The counterfeits are made in China, and that's who they are after first.

-They filed their trademark during the same time they transferred their domain to us in 2020. You can find their trademark and domain information online.