Temu Partners with Greeting Card Industry to Combat Copyright Infringement

Thu Oct 23 2025 06:03:54 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)

Online shopping platform Temu has committed to expedite the removal of counterfeit greeting card designs from its site, addressing concerns raised by designers over rampant copyright violations.

Temu has announced its collaboration with the greeting card industry to create a faster process for removing copied designs from its platform. Complaints from card companies about the massive financial losses incurred through unauthorized reproductions have led to this commitment. A new takedown process, involving AI assistance and fewer reporting requirements, aims to protect designers' intellectual property more effectively.

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

Card firms say hundreds of their copyrighted images have been used to create cheap rip-offs, costing them thousands of pounds in lost sales.

Designers told the BBC the process for getting the plagiarised listings removed has been like the fairground game 'whack-a-mole' with copied products re-appearing within days.

Temu said protecting intellectual property was a top priority and that it was encouraging sellers to join the trial of a new takedown process specifically for the greetings card industry.

Amanda Mountain, co-founder of York-based Lola Design, discovered that the catalogue of designs she had built up over a decade had nearly all been copied. She bought one of her own designs and found the image was distorted and the paper was of a poorer quality than hers.

Amanda and her husband estimate that fraudulent versions of their products have made online sellers £100,000 in sales, equivalent to about 13% of Lola Design's annual turnover.

After pressure from the Greeting Card Association (GCA), Temu has put in place a bespoke takedown process that will remove stolen designs more quickly and prevent them from being re-uploaded. This new process requires fewer steps for card firms to get counterfeits removed, utilizing technology to log original images for protection.

Temu has assured that intellectual property protection is a top priority while seeking to strengthen trust with brands and consumers alike. According to Amanda Fergusson, chief executive of the GCA, the industry welcomes these changes as a means to combat copycat sellers and diminish consumer disappointment with low-quality alternatives.

For designers like Amanda and Frank, this initiative is crucial for their livelihoods and the integrity of the greeting card industry, which sees 1.5 billion cards sold in the UK each year.