An artist has said it felt “infuriating” to discover “hundreds” of items featuring her work for sale on an online marketplace without her permission.
Jenny Urquhart, 49, from Bristol, decided to visit Temu after reading a recent BBC report about card firms complaining about rip-off greeting cards being available for sale on the website.
She said she found “pages and pages” of items using her designs, including men’s underwear, cushions and car mats. “You think of a gift item and I’d find one of my images printed on it,” added Mrs Urquhart.
A spokesperson for Temu said the company had immediately removed the listings in question when it was made aware of the situation.
[…]
“It’s really hard at the moment to make money out of art because quite rightly buying art comes well below obviously, paying the mortgage, buying food, paying the bills,” she said.
"At the moment we’re really struggling. As soon as I get an order on my website I’m overjoyed - every single sale counts.
“To think there’s some multi-million pound business on the other side of the world just flogging your stuff. It’s completely out of your control and infuriating.”
[…]
oeuf@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
This wouldn’t matter so much if 1) Arts Council funding hadn’t been decimated under austerity and 2) Working class people could afford to buy art.
The pool of people who can afford to keep the arts alive is rapidly diminishing. I work with artists and see this week in week out but it’s the same with everything.
Rich man moves to the village and everyone goes to work for him.
MoonManKipper@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Temu are stealing her work and profiting from it. It matters - clearly there are a bunch of people who can afford to keep art alive who are spending their money at Temu rather than with her. Sort that out and then art can be less dependent on public spending and thus more robust
Blackmist@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Isn’t Temu just a bunch of shady Chinese resellers in a trenchcoat like Amazon?
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 1 day ago
Temu sell it for just over the cost of production, while the artist sells it with a high mark up, there’s a difference in affordability.
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
As a working class person who can’t afford art and has always pirates everything this is accurate.
fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk 22 hours ago
Just a few small questions, out of interest - would you buy art if it was significantly cheaper, or free? Or would it just be so low on your priority list that it would never be important enough?
If it was very cheap, or free, would you take “whatever was on offer”, or would you still have very particular tastes in what you liked?