Pirates of the High Seeds

Today, it's not just Chanel, Prada and branded cigarettes that are being faked and pirated. The names and intellectual property of well-known quality weed strains are being increasingly ripped off too - but without the protection in law granted to legitimate businesses.
Soft Secrets spoke to Simon, old school seed breeder extraordinaire and owner of Serious Seeds, whose award-winning household names such as Bubblegum and AK-47 are among the worst hit by this scurrilous activity.

Soft Secrets: You were talking about ripping off the names of weed strains.

Simon: Yes; it may sound like a trivial thing, but I don't think it is. It's a widespread thing. If you're buying seeds off the Internet by name, lots of times you will find what you get is not what you anticipated. Lots of people are trying to parasitize on the popularity of certain names. They build pirate websites, sometimes not selling anything at all. People "buy" something by credit card and never get anything. If they're lucky they get bogus seeds, and only if they're really lucky do they get the real thing. It's very widespread, it's written about in forums and so on, and it filters back to me.

When did you first become aware of this problem with piracy?

Before I had started my own business. I was a grower back then, when you had Skunk and Northern Lights already and in Amsterdam there were shops with seeds with those names way cheaper than the original. So pirates have been there from the start - because it's lucrative, and we operate in a world that is not really protected like regular companies are. They can make lawsuits and all the rest, but in our business we are far more limited, especially when you are operating internationally. People know that. Growers are basically victims. They pay for all those people who parasitize on them, basically. I also get emails regularly from people "I bought these AK seeds from this shop - are they real?" Sometimes they are and sometimes they're not. Serious Seeds has a shop list of legitimate shops on its website which sell the real thing. We guarantee this. People can ask whether shops not on the list are real or not.
It has happened already that companies copy the packaging too, right to the last detail, selling the seeds as if they are real. Serious Seeds is the only company as far as I know who individually number each seed package, and we keep a database of that. This is only because of this problem.
We are also the only company that guarantees our seeds - to protect the customer. If they buy seeds and they have a bad experience - even if they fucked up themselves - we give them new seeds. We want them to have a good experience with our seeds, so we go very far with our customer service. We have a list of legit sites, they can call and check ‘is this a good one or not?' It's all to protect the end customer.

How much are pirates typically making on ripped off seeds? How much cheaper are generic seeds compared to branded AK-47 seeds from you?

AK-47 is not the most expensive seed but it is certainly not a cheap one either. Its sort of ‘upper middle class', let's say. So 80 Euros for 11 seeds. And that is interesting enough for pirates to want to copy.

And with virtually no chance of them being caught.

Very little, yep.

So would you like to see or would you advise other companies to be as careful as Serious in documenting and labelling their varieties? Copying what you're doing.

You can see that the main interest of establishing companies is still making money. So the fact that nobody does it is already pointing in that direction. Nobody else is doing it, and I'm not here to advise other companies. But we have done it since Day 1. I started to sell the seed tubes and now almost everybody is doing it, especially the Spanish companies. So you can see that they take over good ideas but not the full labelling. It is a lot of hassle to do it, checking numbers, fielding complaints. The idea usually is just to sell them and wash your hands. I don't know exactly how other companies deal with complaints.

Are there independent websites where growers can discuss among themselves which seeds or sellers are legit, which websites are not to be trusted?

I have seen such sites, although I can't remember where I saw them. There are also Black Lists too, but I don't visit forums a lot so can't say where for sure.
I'll give you an example of one case - Ontario Seed Bank, OSB - a shop from Canada. He's been operating for a couple of years, takes the whole back cover of the High Times for an advertisement. He used to buy Serious Seeds from us. But at some point we got a couple of complaints very close to each other from their customers, and from the type of the complaint it was clear that these were not Serious Seeds they were getting. The packaging was sort of mine but not totally. So I called the shop, talked to the owner, said ‘hey man, I'm getting complaints here and they're not getting Serious Seeds from you; you're obviously selling seeds as if they were Serious' - and he didn't even bother to deny it.
According to him he wasn't doing anything wrong. He had been selling our seeds for a while, and now he was selling his own seeds as if they were Serious. His first line of argument was that he had to deal with possible complaints, and blah blah blah. Basically: ‘what do you care? If they have complaints I have to face them.' I said "No, you're making money while giving us a bad name; they come to buy our seeds, not your copies." He thought it was perfectly fine to do that, and is still doing it. From customers I know, he's doing it with other companies too. That's how weird it can get.

I guess when the seeds business was mostly confined to Amsterdam or Holland, you could put out inquires, maybe find out what was going on through your personal networks and had a bit more control, but with the Internet it's almost impossible.

I found out a couple of months ago that nowadays...This business started with small seed companies, Sensi Seeds and so on. Now it is all about big companies in Spain growing massive amounts of seeds and selling to everyone. So now there are coffee shops or grow shops and bars or whatever, selling them under their own name. Several coffeeshops in Amsterdam are starting to sell seeds under their own name, they're all bought from a big producer - and guess what? They started selling seeds which are originally Serious names: Bubblegum, Chronic - popular names.

So just pinching your names and sticking them on their own seeds?

Yep. The coffee shops that are buying them, they don't know enough about this issue; they are not in the business and know no better. They are offered seeds under these names and they buy them and sell them. Luckily I found out right away and since it was not a deliberate action against Serious Seeds, they agreed to stop using my names. So you have to be on the lookout even here in Amsterdam. It's happening in Holland, let alone internationally.
A company in Amsterdam - Spliff, just started selling Bubblegum, AK-47 as if it's completely normal. Nirvana started selling AK-47 until I spotted this at a Cannabis Cup a few years ago and said ‘what the fuck is this? You're using my name. You have to stop immediately.' Finally they understood my point.
That is also difficult: people who did not lift a finger to make seeds themselves - they have no clue how much time it takes, they just start selling seeds with somebody else's name, so they don't appreciate the problem. Nirvana promised they'd change the name and they did - to AK-48!

As a variant; variations on names is common throughout the industry.

AK-47 is probably the most copied name in the business. It means when I pay for an ad in a booklet or guide or whatever, right next to my entry is an AK-48, a Jack 47, Kaya 47, Oké 47, Olé 47, AK 74, to name only a few. All copies of the original AK-47. They all seem like equals in the booklet but I see them as copies and in my opinion, not really living up to the original. But when you see them all printed together it looks like they are all in the same league. Especially when all you can have printed is the name and flowering time, and its not permitted to mention all the awards the strain has won. To take part under those conditions is just degrading to the original and to my company.

So what should growers do to safeguard their choice of seeds?

The best thing is to check which company has made the seeds. Unlike the name of the seeds, this is seldom copied. Like I said, I went along with the name changes by Nirvana, White Label seeds and others but there are still a lot of companies selling AK-47 at some point. After my intervention they changed the name to something referring to or close to AK-47, which is fine. But my concern is that the customer when he smokes alone or with friends, some AK-47, and at some point decides: that's what I want, goes to the shop and asks for AK-47, that he shouldn't be confused with names that are the same or similar and he's not getting what he wanted. That is my main concern. If something just reminds you of AK-47, then it's OK by me. There are seeds called OK-57, Armageddon 47, and Jack 47. Like that it is clear that they were derived from AK-47, but there is no danger of confusion with the original. Or so I hope.

I guess one answer is to do something like they're starting to set up in America, where you treat the marihuana industry like any other branch of the agricultural industry, with complete documentation from seed to consumer.

Yes, that's one way, but you have to pay a lot of money for such protection. My names are protected in Benelux. There have been cases and law suits about names already, but in European courts they have a hard time not to burst out laughing, because they think it's funny. But what is the difference to this and if Mr. Heineken was there or a cigarette company? I tell you what the difference is: we're dealing with a very relaxed, non-poisonous product, while they are selling really dangerous drugs - except, theirs is legal and ours is not. It's all about money. All we can do is try to protect our interests and name as best we can.
What you also see is people start a website and start selling seeds and after three months shut the whole business down and start a new thing. They're even harder to track down.

Another ting you see is...Paradise Seeds contacted me - no I contacted them, a couple of years ago. Their website is called paradiseseeds.com, and someone else started a site called paradiseseeds.nl. They look very similar but are not, and the rogue site is attracting attention away from the original site. They sell seeds of course, and are registered in Canada. But it's very hard to find out who's behind it.
So a customer has to not just look at the name but also look at the company who is producing it. If those two are matched, and you also find out what the packaging looks like, then the chances of success are greater. Also look at the website of the company to see if it is a legit shop. You have to look at all these things to boost your chance of success; don't just go by the name.

Wow, there's a lot to say about this subject.

There is. I mean, you don't want to moan about it all the time, but it is also good for the end customer, because they pay the price, so I think we have a responsibility to warn them, to make them realise that this is going on. Before they buy their seeds.

So there you have it; ultimately, it's back to the old Caveat Emptor - buyer beware.