Warwick Levy Forces Temu to Remove 1,000s of Copied T-Shirts as AI-Scraping Fears Grow
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Sep 18
Warwick Levy Forces Temu to Remove 1,000s of Copied T-Shirts as AI-Scraping Fears Grow
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Sep 18
Summary
Thousands of copied Lonely Kids Club T-shirts were removed from Temu after Sydney owner Warwick Levy used his Australian trademark to bulk-report listings that reused his brand name.
Levy said the copies appeared to come from AI scraping of his website, with exact designs, item descriptions, mock-ups and product photos replicated across a catalogue of about 4,000 products.
Temu said it promptly removed the reported listings through its IP Protection Portal and added the brand’s works to its monitoring database, while stressing that independent sellers are barred from infringing intellectual property.
Levy said copyright complaints were harder to pursue than trademark claims and described Temu’s reporting process as full of roadblocks, with forms failing and direct emails getting nowhere.
The case lands as Australia weighs AI copyright reforms that could let tech companies scrape online content for model training, a prospect Levy called devastating for artists and small brands.