Creators are constantly reminded these days that they need to protect their creative works. Temu is the latest in the line of e-commerce platforms that have been involved in stealing the art of creators by selling copies of their designs and using the images creators share of their work without permission. Temu generated an estimated $20 billion in sales in the first six months of 2024, surpassing annual sales of $15.33 billion in 2023. How much do creators receive from that amount so far?
NOT A DIME.
Sad bonus: that’s also COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, DESIGN & IMAGE THEFT.
These are the main sections of this article — feel free to navigate to the point that you’re most interested in:
- Creators about their stolen artwork
- What can you do to protect your creative work before it gets stolen?
- What can you do to protect your creative work after it gets stolen?
Creators about their stolen artwork
It appears that companies like Temu, Aliexpress, Shein, Amazon, and Etsy are involved in unethical business practices and make it harder for smaller creative businesses to thrive when they sell lower-quality copies of their work for a substantially lower price.
Many creators have complained about the situation:
And of course, this is the top of the hill, probably:
Now, if any company would want to work with creators ethically, they would need to sign a licensing agreement that specifies the circumstances of how their artwork can be sold and most importantly, with the permission of the creator.
This is clearly not the case with the above-mentioned companies (for God’s sake, even H&M has an ongoing lawsuit against Shein) and the fact is that sometimes creators themselves are not familiar with the legality of this situation, let alone customers who might not even think twice before placing a purchase on a site like Temu.
| Licensing agreements A licensing agreement can cover the licensing of several creative work, such as a visual art piece, a photograph or a software someone developed. Netflix also has to sign such agreements with creators of certain movies and TV shows when they want to stream those on their platform. This article is about licensing agreements in general, and this one is a very good guide to photo licensing agreements specifically. Both can be useful for creators. |
Painter Ishita Banerjee from Montréal shared useful ideas about how people could recognize whether they’re buying from an ethical company or one that sells artwork illegally.
“Companies that license from artists, will have an artists page on their website, they will have info on the piece, materials, and often, about the artist themselves… If the prices are unbelievably low, chances are, there’s definitely something “off” there.”
What can you do to protect your creative work before it gets stolen?
I don’t want to assume that your work will get stolen but the thing is that you can take a couple of steps to protect your work that will give you an advantage in the case of it being stolen.
1. Register the copyright to your work – This is a must if you create functional designs!
Ordinarily, the moment you create something, you are automatically granted the copyright to it, and you can decide whether you like to publish it, share it, distribute it, and how. However, if your art gets stolen, your case will stand on stronger grounds if you officially register your copyright, too.
The process of copyright registration can vary from country to country but for instance, in the US, you can turn to the USCO (US Copyright Office) and register your work with them — you can do that even if you don’t live there.
But, things are different when it comes to design copyright and the copyright of designs with a function. The artist’s J.D. has a complex guide about design copyright and I highly recommend spending some time with it if you are the maker of such products (e.g. jewelry, accessories, planners, etc.) As they say:
“Copyright law grants protection for artwork. But not copyright for items that are functional (like jewelry, clothing, and accessories)… [however)] Copyright law does protect creative portions of functional items.”
And this is where design copyright gets interesting: what is considered the creative portion and how is that identified? Where does the functional part of a handmade earring end and where does its creative, artistic portion start?
Please, read the guide linked above and get familiar with this topic as much as you can because it seems that the safest option for makers of functional designs is copyright registration.
Now, moving on, you can register the copyright of the following types of works (amongst others) with the USCO:
- Photographs
- Illustrations
- Jewelry Designs
- Paintings
- Prints / Reproductions
- Sculptures
- Drawings
- Fabric designs
- Graphic designs
You can also learn about the fees of copyright registration here.
2. Use a copyright notice
A copyright notice can help avoid the unauthorized use of your work and it’s as simple as listing the following data on the product page of your artwork:
- The copyright symbol (©) or the word “copyright”
- A statement of rights (e.g. “All Rights Reserved”)
- The creator/author’s name
- (optional) The date or date range (of creation) marking the year(s)
- (optional) Contact information (where interested parties can get in touch to request permission to use your work which will often be your website address)
Make sure that this data is visible enough and is placed in closed proximity of the image of the creative work (on your website, for instance) so everyone can see which piece the copyright notice applies to.
3. Protect the images of your artwork
There are several routes you can take if you want to protect the images of your artwork that you very likely use on your website. I’ll list enough so you can choose which one feels comfortable with you.
Important notice: The following tips, sadly, won’t bring a 100% guarantee that your images won’t get stolen. You have to decide if you want to implement these knowing that there is still a chance of image theft.
In my opinion, even if nothing is bulletproof, I’d like to assume that if you do something to protect your work, at least you make it harder for others to steal it. They might even give up trying or simply won’t know how to go around that wall of protection. You’ll never know. Why not try your best?
- Watermark: Put a watermark on the images of your work. It’s not pretty and so creators tend to not love this option plus, watermarks can be removed and digitally altered. However, this is one of the oldest tricks against image theft that we know.
- Use a digital signature: A digital signature is very similar to a watermark but for many, it’s more aesthetically pleasing and it can be easily done in Photoshop. Illustrators often put their initials on their work as a digital signature.
- Include hidden foreground layers: By hidden, I mean transparent layers. When the image is downloaded, there will be a blank layer “in front of” the image and anyone who wants to use it without authorization, won’t be able to. This is also something you can do in Photoshop.
- Edit EXIF data: If you take a digital photograph of your artwork, you can edit the EXIF file which contains different image attributes and you can add your name and copyright notice to it as well. This type of metadata can unfortunately be stripped from the file by a person or a platform but again, it’s an option.
- Use low-resolution images: A low-resolution image won’t look so nice on your website but it will help if somebody wants to download it and use it without your permission. They’ll probably think twice about wanting to use an image that is not of quality.
- Adjust the color profile: Similar to the above tip, adjusting the color profile will alter the image as it is. Although today’s web browsers color-correct images to display them as nicely as possible, a color-adjusted image will supposedly look less aesthetic (compared to the original) when downloaded and can help stop others from using it.
- Disable right-click: Oh, the right-click. Sometimes it’s a built-in function for certain platforms and in other cases, you can disable right-click on your site yourself so the option to download an image won’t be presented to the visitor of the page.
- Block screenshots:Yes, you can block website visitors from taking a screenshot on your site. There are some plug-ins for that (for instance, for WordPress sites). Of course, if something is allowing you to block, there is another tool to unblock — nevertheless, you can test this one out, too.
- Disable hotlinking: This one is quite technical but I wanted to include it because hotlinking is unethical and unprofessional, and relates to this topic. Hotlinking means that somebody embeds a digital asset from your site on their own (so they’re not downloading it this time), and they’ll do it in a way that wastes your server resources. This one has both legal and cost implications for those involved. Learn how you can disable hotlinking here.
- Use an image monitoring & protection service: One of these services is Pixsy which can monitor and find duplicates of your images on the web. You can manually review the find, then send legally binding one-click takedown notices with their help and even get legal representation later if necessary.
Lastly, a simple bonus tip. Check where you upload photos. The reality is that the more places you share your work and images of your creative work, the more likely you expose them to being stolen.
Yes, in an ideal world, this shouldn’t be your responsibility and something to feel as a burden. You only want to share your creativity with others after all and more often than not, make a living out of what you love to do the most.
But, this is our reality. Be alert, mindful and protect what you can.
What can you do after your creative work gets stolen?
I’ll narrow this down to your two most basic options.
1. Send a copyright infringement report to the related platform
Your first move should be to fill out a copyright infringement report directed at the platform where the infringement takes place. These are the pages where you can do that:
- Amazon
- Temu
- Shein
- Aliexpress (first you need to register an Alibaba account)
- Etsy
As a reminder: things get very complicated when another party doesn’t only steal an image you created but your design, too. Design copyright and design theft are extremely complex from a legal point of view but I definitely urge you to take your chance here, even if creators have reported not succeeding through these reports (there are others who did though).
2. Get legal assistance
If the above option doesn’t work or you want to skip it right away, you can find legal assistance which can take many forms. I’ll list three different routes so you can have options (also when it comes to costs).
- Pixsy for image theft: The above-mentioned Pixsy is not only an image protection platform but they also have a legal enforcement service to help you recover compensation from image theft. If there is an unauthorized commercial use of an image of yours, they’ll take your case (internationally). They work on a no-win, no-fee basis, meaning that they only get compensated for your work if they win your case against the infringing party.
- Kiffanie Stahle, the attorney of creatives: Kiff runs the Artist’s J.D. site where you can shoot your legal questions, and you can contact her on her law firm’s site. She’s also a photographer and creative business owner — here’s an interview with her. She published a book to give a legal roadmap to creatives to protect their assets without legal confusion that you might want to check out, as well.
- Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts: This is a US organization where you can seek legal (or financial) help as an artist but they offer interpreter services for non-English speaking applicants, too. Filing fees and other expenses can occur but you might be eligible for their pro bono services as well. You can also look for similar organizations in your own country.
The legalities of creator life: Be hopeful and be ready
This is quite a lengthy article but I assumed that if somebody is looking for knowledge in the topic of how creators and artists can legally protect their work from getting stolen, whether that’s a full design or image theft, and what on earth they can do if it already happened, it means they have an important cause to look for information, and so are willing to spend a bit more time reading online than usual.
I hope you’ve learned something by reading this and if you have any questions left, feel free to contact us. I’ll do my best to get you the answers. I’m also planning on updating this article in the future as necessary and want to sit down with legal experts in the topic to bring you even more polished and solid support when it comes to the legalities of creator life.
Until then, let’s hope the good wins in the end 😇 — but also, seriously, be ready. 🥊
Stay in the loop!
Subscribe and receive useful resources directly in your inbox.
It’s free, you can ubsubscribe anytime.
Leave a Reply