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The Guardian — Technology · September 18, 2026 · On the brief until October 2, 2026

‘Brutal’: thousands of T-shirt designs stolen and listed on Temu, Sydney label claims

Intellectual Property LawDesignMarketing
THE AI ANGLE
Automated scraping of creative catalogs and product data to replicate commercial designs

Sydney apparel label Lonely Kids Club discovered thousands of its graphic T-shirt designs, product photos, and descriptions copied and sold on Temu, allegedly through AI web-scraping tools. While Australian copyright law theoretically protects original designs, the founder faced significant hurdles with platform reporting and ultimately had to rely on trademark claims over the brand name to force takedowns. The case underscores the operational and legal vulnerabilities small creative brands face when automated scraping is paired with marketplace-scale infringement.

Summary written by AI Business Lens with an AI model from the article at theguardian.com. It is not the article, and the publisher has not reviewed it. For publishers.

THE TEACHING ANGLE
Students can evaluate why trademark claims proved more practically effective than copyright enforcement in removing wholesale catalog copies from an online marketplace, as well as the risks posed by proposed legislation permitting commercial AI scraping.

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