Temu agrees to remove fraudulent greeting cards more quickly

E-commerce giant Temu has agreed to work with the greeting card industry to remove copied designs from its site more quickly.

Card companies claim hundreds of their copyrighted images have been used to create cheap scams, costing them thousands in lost sales.

The designers told the BBC that the process of removing plagiarized listings was like the fairground game “whack-a-mole” with copied products reappearing within days.

Temu said intellectual property protection was a “top priority” and she encouraged sellers to join in trialling a new takedown process specifically aimed at the greeting card industry.

Amanda Mountain, co-founder of York-based Lola Design, discovered that the catalog of designs she had built up over a decade had almost all been copied.

She discovered that the images she had created had been misappropriated and were being advertised by other sellers on cards and other products like t-shirts.

Amanda purchased one of the cards using her design and discovered that the image was distorted and the paper was of lower quality than hers.

“It’s not a good feeling to see something you’ve poured all your love and hours into taken away in a matter of minutes,” she told the BBC. “I was in shock and said to myself ‘what’s the point of continuing to conceive, I might as well stop now’.”

Amanda and her husband and business partner Frank estimate that the fraudulent versions of their products generated a turnover of £100,000 for online sellers, which equates to around 13% of Lola Design’s annual turnover.

However, Amanda said it was both the emotional toll and the time it took to remove copied products that had the biggest impact.

“Every piece I create is actually a part of me,” she said. “I know it sounds crazy, but it is. Every designer gives a part of themselves because they just want to create a little happiness, and it’s not a big deal to ask people to respect that.”

Under pressure from the Greeting Card Association (GCA), Temu has now implemented a bespoke takedown process for the industry which it says will mean stolen designs will be removed more quickly and cannot be re-uploaded.

Previously, card companies had to report each individual registration, but under the trial they will now only have to submit a single link. The software will remove the product and all other products using the same design.

A map publisher, which helped develop the new system, had 68 ads removed automatically. Something that previously might have meant 68 separate forms or emails to Temu.

According to the GCA, the system will then use AI to save the designer’s original creation as a protected image. It will then block all products using this design before they go on sale.

In a statement, Temu said “protecting intellectual property is a top priority” and that it had “invested heavily in resources to build trust with brands, sellers and consumers.”

He said most requests to remove copyrighted material were resolved within three business days, but greeting card companies were encouraged to join the new trial which he said would result in more products being removed automatically.

The system is tailor-made for the cards industry, but the BBC understands it could be used as a model for similar or alternative processes for other products.

Amanda Fergusson, chief executive of the GCA, said the industry welcomed the changes. “We know that our members are very fond of copycat sellers and, furthermore, we also know that customers are often disappointed by cheap copies,” she said.

“Our dialogue with Temu and the actions they are taking are a welcome first step in resolving these issues,” she added.

For Amanda and Frank, it’s not just their livelihoods that are at stake, but the future of the entire supply chain which depends on the 1.5 billion greeting cards sold each year in the UK.

“At some point it will be consumers who are affected, not just us as designers, because there will be no more high streets,” Amanda said. She also had a message for people who buy copied cards: “Cheap always comes at a cost. »