LOGO PROVIDES CLUE TO AUTHENTICITY

Losses now reach as much as $2 million nationwide in an explosion of counterfeit USA for Africa merchandise. Organizers of the anti-famine campaign said Sunday that a press conference on the growing problem will be called early this week.

“The losses so far look like at least a couple million,” said Wendy Ferris, foundation spokeswoman.

There is a built-in clue for consumers to determine which merchandise is authentic: They can literally separate the wheat from the chaff.

The counterfeit clothing line--which USA for Africa Foundation officials say is already available in stores from coast to coast--carries the trademark USA for Africa logo as it was printed on the sleeve of the No. 1-selling 45-rpm single, “We Are the World.” A shaft of wheat appears in the first A of Africa in that design.

But, according to foundation attorney Jay Cooper, the official sweat shirts, T-shirts, pins and buttons, sold only by mail order until last week, have the wheat shaft in the second A of Africa.

“We’re doing both mail order and selling to stores as of this week,” Cooper told The Times on Friday. “But our merchandise is just starting to reach the stores. We’re finding bootleg merchandise in Beverly Hills and Westwood and in major department stores in Florida, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Phoenix, Tucson, San Francisco. . . .”

The authorized clothing line is manufactured and distributed by rock impresario Bill Graham’s Winterland Productions in San Francisco, Cooper said. Until the demand became so intense that the blue-on-white $21 sweat shirt and seven other merchandise items were produced in large enough quantities to ship to retailers, the only way to buy them was through mail order.

Order forms (which, ironically, bear the counterfeit logo) were included in the jackets of millions of the Columbia LP albums that went on sale April 1. The “We Are the World” album, which debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard album chart last week, is expected to be at No. 1 when this week’s sales charts are made public today.

Cooper said the counterfeit products to date appear to have been manufactured for the most part by either single individuals or small operators, though at least one bootlegger seems to be operating on a national scale.

“There’s one that’s so organized that it has an 800 number,” he said. “They’ve taken ads out. It’s an organization in Wisconsin. They’ve already put out catalogues.”

Another counterfeiter has been traced to a Santa Monica firm that lists an address on its invoice, but no telephone number.

One rival shirt maker, who admits to already having sold 800 shirts, is contributing a portion of the revenue to Operation California, a bona fide California charity.

Spokeswoman Blake O’Leary said Al and Sondra Taylor of Westwood have been selling “Make It a Better Day” T-shirts and sweat shirts to area retailers for the last two weeks. The lyrics of the “We Are the World” single refer to making “it a brighter day,” not a better day, O’Leary pointed out.

“They are not making a profit. They are breaking even,” she said of the Taylors. “Bill Graham (founder of Winterland Productions) doesn’t have a monopoly on charity.”

She said the Taylors, who will contribute $1 from every shirt sold to charity, “eventually want to become the king and queen of T-shirts.”

O’Leary said the shirts, which bear no USA for Africa trademarks, retail for $10 to $11. The Taylors purchase Hanes T-shirts, silk-screen them with their own designs and sell them to retailers for $5 per T-shirt. Retailer mark-up is usually about $6, she said.

“When they sell 200 more shirts, we’ll have a photographer take a picture of them handing over a $1,000 check to Operation California,” O’Leary said.

At least two of the retailers marketing the counterfeit shirts said Friday they thought they were being just as generous as the Taylors. Jazz’d, T-shirt outlets with stores in Beverly Hills and Westwood, was selling sweat shirts for $21 apiece and contributing $5 from every sale to USA for Africa. Before Cooper asked Jazz’d to pull the shirts out of their display windows last week, Jazz’d had contributed $1,300 to the foundation, according to Jazz’d general manager Rick Lieberson. Jazz’d was not making very much on the shirts, even though they were a very popular Jazz’d item for the two weeks that the store had them on sale, Lieberson said.

But the foundation itself, which Cooper’s law firm set up shortly after the Jan. 28 session at which 45 pop stars gathered to record “We Are the World,” is not just nonprofit. It also is limited to six paid staff members and has virtually no overhead costs, so the maximum possible amount of the money consumers pay for USA for Africa products can go in direct aid to 21 African nations ravaged by drought and famine.

Cooper said his own firm vowed to contribute all its legal fees to the cause. He estimated that the time of nine of his staff members invested in the project thus far has cost him about $35,000 in legal fees.

Winterland, too, is contributing all of its costs, he said, so that almost every dollar of the $21 a consumer spends on a sweat shirt goes directly to the foundation.

Including donations and proceeds from the sale of USA for Africa products so far, foundation officials estimate that the instant anti-famine organization has already taken in about $25 million.

Cooper said no lawsuits have been filed against counterfeiters yet, but added that “we have rights under the trademark law and it’s very clear (on the album and single record jackets) that the insignia was copyrighted.

“We have a three-step process before we file a lawsuit: First, we go in and buy the merchandise so that we have the evidence. Second, we send a cease-and-desist letter. Third, we call and tell them what the organization is about and try to get it stopped that way, and try to get them to purchase from our manufacturer.

“If they still refuse to do that, then we file the lawsuit.”