73 BUSINESS -TEMU together! The Government must act, especially regarding the likes of TEMU and Shein. While it would be hard to stop them from stealing the art, they can make it harder for them to sell to the UK. The current customs duty fee structure is outdated. It allows these companies to flood the UK with cheap, often counterfeit, goods at the expense of British businesses.”, add Laura and Jack. The greetings card marketplace, thortful, on which both designers sell their cards, recognises more must be done and is lobbying with the Government to protect UK independent creators. Pip Heywood, Managing Director at thortful adds, “Our creators put a huge amount of effort into their work, with some even exclusively partnering with us and relying on royalties from each card sale for their livelihoods. When fast consumer marketplaces like TEMU take designs from our site, it undermines our creators. They’ve dedicated countless hours to develop their ideas, only to see them sold at low prices with no compensation.” Pip follows by saying, “We won’t stand by and let our creators be exploited. We’ve worked with our legal team at Cripps to develop a template and step-by-step process for our creators to pursue a copyright claim directly as IP owners. Alongside this, we’re liaising with the Greeting Card Association and lobbying the Government directly - something which should chime with our new Government’s manifesto on protection of creative industries which stresses the importance of protecting IP rights and ensuring creators are fairly compensated for their work. Lastly, we’re petitioning TEMU directly to both rectify the current situation and understand their proposed checks and balances to ensure this can’t happen again.” Creators can go online to find thortful’s template, along with a step-by-step process to follow to effectively express concerns to TEMU. To help protect creators further, Pip shares the recently updated advice from the Government on protecting intellectual property on TEMU: • Register for a user account on TEMU IP Protection Portal. • Use a three-step takedown process for reporting infringements. • Submit and manage global IP reports via a single account. • Register trademarks via the TEMU Brand Registry Tool for streamlined trademark infringement reporting. She also shares how to find stolen designs online: • Use relevant keywords in TEMU’s search function to find your designs. • Reverse image search your designs to see if they appear on TEMU or other websites. • On Google Chrome: Right-click the image and select ‘Search with Google Lens’. • On Microsoft Edge: Right-click the image and choose ‘Search in sidebar for image’. • Be aware that reverse image search is helpful but not always 100 per cent accurate.
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