Temu vs Shein Lawsuit: the implications for online sellers and how to protect your product imagery

Fast-fashion behemoth Shein has lost a UK High Court copyright battle against Temu, in a ruling that sets a major precedent for how far online marketplaces are legally responsible for what images their third-party sellers post. 

Shein accused Temu of allowing merchants to steal photos directly from its website on an “industrial scale” – a claim that fell flat as Temu was found to have neither authorised nor known about the alleged infringement. 

For small UK sellers using platforms like Etsy, Amazon, and eBay, where product image theft is commonplace, the case raises an awkward question: if a retail giant couldn’t win this fight, what chance do independent sellers have of protecting their imagery?

Shein loses major copyright lawsuit against rival Temu

In a new chapter of the ongoing rivalry between Temu vs Shein, Shein lost its London lawsuit against Temu after a High Court judge rejected its attempt to hold the company liable for copyrighted clothing photos uploaded by third-party sellers on the platform. 

Shein accused Temu of widespread infringements, claiming the platform allowed merchants to use photos lifted directly from its website to advertise clothing sold on Temu. 

The dispute originally involved thousands of Temu listings, but this was later reduced to a smaller group of sample images, including a “Strawberry Nightdress” that had been delisted from Shein due to poor sales, before appearing on Temu with the same image. 

Shein argued that Temu had actively enabled sellers on the platform to misuse its copyrighted images. Mrs Justice Bacon rejected this claim, ruling that Temu “did not authorise copyright infringement by users of its website”, and that the website didn’t know, or had reason to believe, the photos infringed Shein’s copyright. 

Ultimately, while this ruling marks a huge loss for Shein, the consequences of the trial ripple beyond major online retailers to smaller sellers who lack the time and resources to bring copyright cases to trial.

What this lawsuit means for independent online sellers

For the ~500,000 strong community online sellers in the UK, the takeaway from this case is bleak. If your photo gets copied, the realistic target of copyright infringement is the seller who copied it, not the marketplace hosting them.

For small businesses with little resources, this often results in a slow, low-value fight against an anonymous or overseas account, rather than a swift resolution from the marketplace itself. 

This doesn’t mean that victims of copyright infringements are left empty-handed, though. Sending out hyper-precise takedown notices, which clearly identify the specific infringing listing, prove ownership of the image, and leave no room for doubt, is much harder for large platforms to ignore.

Once a marketplace has received a claim with that level of detail, it can no longer claim that it lacked knowledge of an infringement, which was a core part of Temu’s defence. 

While this ruling doesn’t strip sellers of protection completely, it does redraw the parameters of who’s expected to enforce it. Rather than relying on marketplaces to police copyright on behalf of sellers, independent sellers now carry more of the burden themselves.

While this might seem like a step in the wrong direction for sellers hoping platforms would shoulder more responsibility, there are proactive steps you can take today, before infringement happens.