Another infringement, the artist accused Temu of plagiarizing his work

An Australian visual artist has called on consumers to support small design businesses in an Instagram post after she discovered that e-commerce giant Temu was selling products that looked exactly like her designs at rock-bottom prices.

In a video that went viral on Instagram, Kelsey Cosmic from Melbourne shared how she discovered the incident: One day she saw a man at a music festival wearing a shirt and shorts, and the pattern printed on the man's shirt looked very familiar.

When approached and questioned, the man said that he bought the shirt in Temu.

When Kelsey searched the Temu website, in addition to the shirt, a blanket with the same psychedelic pop design appeared in the search results.

“So what’s happening now is that not only are they selling shirts and shorts with my designs on them, they’re selling my designs as blankets,” she told her more than 40,000 followers.

Kelsey went on to explain that the blanket listed on Temu is priced at $14, while it previously cost her about $60 to make it herself, not including GST and shipping.

According to Kelsey, Temu's website shows that 16,000 units of the product have been sold.

“It’s so hard to compete with companies like this and it’s really sad that my art has once again been stolen by a big company,” she said.

The video has now received more than 64,000 likes and 4,700 comments, including many from other illustrators and artists who say they have had similar experiences.

“It’s horrible. So many small businesses have had their ideas stolen.”

“They did the same thing to me! More people need to realize this.”

In fact, this kind of plagiarism of designer ideas is not a recent phenomenon. As early as 2015, there were media reports that large retailers such as Target and Kmart had sold infringing goods.

In its official intellectual property policy, Temu says that while it has no involvement in the products sold on its marketplace, it is “committed to protecting everyone’s intellectual property and has a strict policy regarding products that infringe on third-party intellectual property rights.”

“When we receive reports of intellectual property infringement consistent with this IP policy and applicable law, we respond promptly by removing or disabling access to the alleged links.”

Temu also advises that if you wish to file a complaint regarding infringing items, you should contact the company through its official website.

Temu

Infringement