72 TEMU has come under fire as many independent greetings card designers and creators accuse the online retailer of allowing design theft. Multiple designers, who exclusively sell their designs on the greeting’s card marketplace, thortful, speak up on how their designs have been stolen and sold off at a discount price, claiming it has negatively affected their indie business. Laura and Jack from Rutland, who design and trade under the name ‘Paper Plane’, comment on how the design theft has affected their business, “We’ve seen listings on TEMU claiming to have sold 100,000+ of our designs. I’ve no idea how true that is, but even a fraction of that severely impacts us. Every sale that someone else makes using our intellectual property is like stealing directly from our bank account.” Sarah from West London, also known as ‘Silky Rose’, adds, “I work very hard to create original designs and make sure not to copy other artists. I have a few select platforms that I sell my cards on, so seeing my designs showing up on large websites like TEMU, where I have not licensed the artwork, and knowing that someone else is profiting off my work is infuriating. Sadly, this is starting to happen more and more. It’s honestly so disheartening to discover your designs being stolen. You get a horrible sinking feeling in your stomach. I’ve worked so hard to build up an original catalogue and put so much of myself into turning my designing into a business.” she says. Both designers claim copyright is the only protection they have but won’t protect them 100 per cent, with further action being costly. Laura and Jack explain, “When our artwork is stolen, all we can do is ask for the site hosting it to remove it. Often, they do, but if they don’t, the only recourse we have is to engage solicitors, which is prohibitively expensive.” Thea, also known as Bold and Bright, adds, “It’s been very time-consuming trawling their website trying to find my designs to report. As TEMU is a fairly new company, hopefully they will become a bit better ethically, especially after being called out on it. I’m not sure who can take direct responsibility to report the issue. - probably the designer, but the guidance from thortful is a big help.” Sarah adds, “Reporting every listing that has stolen my designs is very time consuming. I run my small business part time, so every hour spent searching and then reporting it, is an hour less I could have spent working on new designs. As a small business, I don’t have the money to spend fighting large companies if anything like this ever went to court. And the large companies know this.” Whilst design theft is an issue that the designers say is becoming increasingly common, Sarah adds that the card design community is supportive of each other. “We come together so strongly at times like this, and that’s what keeps me going - small businesses standing Here, thortful provides a template and step-by-step guide to support creators’ fight against TEMU and similar e-commerce sites IMAGE THEFT AND HOW TO TACKLE IT
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