Nuts and Bolts – IP Theft at Temu.
Nuts & Bolts – IP Theft at Temu
The mission of the Greeting Card Association (GCA) is to promote, represent and celebrate the greeting card industry. One of many valued roles that an industry organization plays is being a collective voice and advocate for their industry.
GCA has recently taken up an effort to report and raise awareness of the image theft and IP infringements happening online at the likes of Temu and Shein.
Here is the GCA’s recent effort:
Are you having your designs ripped off and sold without your permission on Temu and Shein?
Several of our members are experiencing this challenge — and we are building an effort to fight back!
The GCA is preparing to respond to an Executive Order asking for feedback on formal and informal barriers to free and fair trade from other countries. We will be calling out the blind eye the Chinese government has given to copyright and other intellectual property theft. Our hope is to ensure that while tariffs on legitimate products are removed, they remain in place for bad actors.
Here is a link to the request from the office of the US Trade Representative.
Many GCU artists are finding their images illegally used on Temu. See the related forum thread here for more information and how to issue a takedown request.
Although this is a risk of selling online it should not be accepted nor tolerated. GCU will follow the topic and identify where and how to get involved in support of the artist community at large.
The difference is made in the details!
Mindy
mindy@gcuniverse.com
GCU Community 
I am happy to hear that the industry is trying to address the issue of intellectual property theft. I’m afraid the problem is so massive that there isn’t much that can be done by the individual artist, especially when dealing with countries that do not respect copyright laws. I have trouble getting into the GCU forums most of the time, but I did see the relevant thread and learned that my cards are showing up at Temu. I haven’t pursued it, mostly because I lack the time but also because I don’t want to open an account at Temu in order to send a DMCA notice. I’ve been down that road before with other Print on Demand sites and a certain popular online retailer with 3rd party shops. It was a giant time waster. Anyway, best of luck to the GCA with their efforts.
Thank you, Mindy. Nice to have the added support!