A York craft business’ designs are being copied on an industrial scale to sell on low-cost products on online market place sites, the couple who run it have said.
Amanda and Frank Mountain run Lola Designs, which creates artwork for greeting cards, said they had lost out on £100,000 due to online design theft.
They said they felt there was little they could do to stop the sales, with change needed to make sites hosting products more accountable.
Amanda and Frank have built up their business, based on East Mount Road, over the last decade. They now supply major retailers and ship their products as far afield as New Zealand.
Inspiration for the designs comes from Amanda’s love of animals and nature.
The couple said the low-cost products featuring their designs were not only undercutting their business but also harming other UK firms in their supply chain.
They don’t have the resources to pursue those responsible for copyright claims and current intellectual property laws were failing to protect them.
Amanda said: “We always thought this would happen at some point, and at first we tried to ignore it.
“But now we’ve had more than 50 of our designs stolen that have been put on thousands of products that have been sold, we’ve lost an estimated £100,000 in sales.
“I was completely shocked, it wasn’t just one design here and there, it’s mass industrial copying.
“Copying has happened to us so much over the years that I’ve become a bit numb to it, but when it happens on this scale it leaves me questioning why I keep going.”
‘Taking a piece of me’
Amanda said her work was very personal. “There’s a piece of me in every design I do, so it feels like every time someone does this they’re taking a piece of me.
“We’ve contacted Temu and other market place sites and they have taken products down but by then they’ve already made their money, they say they want to protect our intellectual property but all they want to do is make a profit.
“We’re risking legitimising this kind of behaviour by allowing these online marketplace platforms to build their businesses on the back of these sales.
“We know other companies have been affected by this, whenever I check to see if our designs have been stolen I see so many other designs from other small greeting card businesses.”
Frank said: “We’re losing around one in every ten sales to people who’ve taken our designs and sold products on these platforms, this is happening on an industrial scale.
“That’s a tenth of our earnings, it’s a huge hit for us, we think these online market places should be held to account for those losses and they should be legally required to pay compensation.
“What’s more, these goods are being sold on platforms which are based overseas that aren’t paying VAT or business rates here in the UK.
“So it’s not just affecting us, design theft is having an impact on jobs, the high street and Government revenue.
“If it carries on its going to have a huge effect on creative industries and the UK economy.
“We want the Government to put more safeguards in place, current copyright laws aren’t enough because it means we have to pay for lawyers to make claims and that isn’t an option for us.”
What Temu say
York Central MP Rachael Maskell called for more to be done to protect businesses such as Lola Designs after being approached by the couple for help.
She said: “This theft has to stop, and I want the Government to step in to help my constituents and the many others like them who are having their work stolen in this way.”
Creative Industries Minister Chris Bryant said the Government was committed to a strong intellectual property regime after Labour MP Ms Maskell raised Lola Designs’ case in Parliament in November.
The couple have since met with the IPO and its spokesperson told LDRS it continues to support small businesses and the public to report copyright infringement.
The spokesperson said: “The IPO continues to engage with the major e-commerce stores in the UK and overseas to remove goods identified as infringing or counterfeit, and permanently remove persistent sellers from their platforms.
“We publish guidance to help traders protect their IP rights on all major e-commerce stores, including Temu.”
A spokesperson for Temu, owned by the China-based PDD Holdings, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service they had created an improved brand protection centre and expanded their IP team to crack down on infringement.
They added they required sellers to agree to do business lawfully, including protecting consumer rights and obeying intellectual property rules.
Shein, another online market place site named by Mr and Mrs Mountain as one hosting counterfeit products, did not respond to multiple requests from LDRS to comment on the claims.
Temu’s spokesperson said: “We’ve set up a specialised system dedicated to the protection of intellectual property rights and an associated reporting structure.
“These systems act as swift, responsive mechanisms to address any intellectual property infringement claims made by rights holders or consumers.
“We have also incorporated the relevant works from Lola Design to our IP database for proactive monitoring.
“We take immediate and robust actions to rectify any such issues and we remain committed to engaging with stakeholders to refine our services.”