In brief
Temu has announced a new process to swiftly remove plagiarized greeting card designs from its site, addressing significant losses faced by designers. The company aims to streamline the takedown process by enabling card firms to report infringements more efficiently. Many designers have expressed frustration over the current lengthy removal procedures, leading to substantial financial losses in their businesses. Temu's new initiative is a direct response to feedback from the Greeting Card Association.
Online shopping giant Temu has agreed to work with the greeting card industry to remove copied designs from its site more quickly.
Card firms say hundreds of their copyrighted images have been used to create cheap rip-offs, costing them thousands of pounds in lost sales.
Designers told the BBC the process for getting the plagiarised listings removed has been like the fairground game 'whack-a-mole' with copied products re-appearing within days.
Temu said protecting intellectual property was a 'top priority' and that it was encouraging sellers to join the trial of a new takedown process specifically for the greetings card industry.
Amanda Mountain, co-founder of York-based Lola Design, discovered that a catalog of designs she had built over a decade had nearly all been copied. She saw her creations advertised by others on cards and other products, prompting her to purchase one of the counterfeit cards and find it of noticeably inferior quality.
After pressure from the Greeting Card Association (GCA), Temu has implemented a bespoke takedown process for the industry, moving to remove stolen designs more quickly and preventing their re-upload. Previously, card firms would need to report each individual listing; now they can submit one link that triggers the removal of all related products.
According to the GCA, the new system will utilize AI to log original designs as protected images, blocking any products using those designs before they go on sale.
Temu emphasized its commitment to protecting intellectual property, stating that most take-down requests are resolved within three working days. The changes are welcomed by the GCA, as they believe it will help combat the negative impact of copycat sellers on the industry and consumer disappointment with low-quality imitations.
For designers like Amanda and Frank, the issue is not just about their livelihoods but also the future of a supply chain that relies on the sale of 1.5 billion greeting cards every year in the UK. At some point, it's going to be the consumers that are affected, not just us as designers because there won’t be any high streets, Amanda noted, reminding buyers that 'cheap always comes at a cost.'
