Sheinhas lost its High Court copyright case against rivalTemuover the alleged use of its product photographs. It had accused Temu of infringing its copyright “on an industrial scale”, claiming merchants on the marketplace had used photographs of Shein’s own-brand clothing to help sell competing products. However, Mrs Justice Kelyn Bacon rejected Shein’s argument that Temu was liable for the alleged infringements and ruled that the PDD Holdings-owned marketplace had not authorised merchants to breach Shein’s copyright. The judge also found that, even if copyright infringement had been established, Temu could have relied on a legal defence available to online hosting platforms because it acted as an intermediary and did not have sufficient knowledge of any infringement by sellers using its site. Shein had initially alleged that Temu itself reproduced its photographs, but did not pursue that part of its case at trial because Temu’s servers are based outside the UK and any reproduction therefore took place beyond the country’s jurisdiction.