Shein v Temu: Evidencing Marketplace Takedowns Listing by Listing

The case in brief

Roadget Business and Shein Distribution UK sued WhaleCo UK, the operator of Temu's UK website, for copyright infringement in product photographs. Judgment was given on 13 August 2026 by Mrs Justice Bacon in the Intellectual Property List of the High Court, citation [2026] EWHC 2165 (Ch).

Shein's claims failed on several grounds, including questions of copyright title, and the court held that Temu would in any event have been protected by the hosting defence. Temu's counterclaim under Shein's cross-undertaking in damages, for product listings taken down under court orders, succeeded on liability; the amount of the loss is left for a later trial. This is a first-instance judgment, and the outcome was not decided by the quality of web evidence alone. We look at it only for what it says about notices and listings.

What the court found about the notices

The letter before action of 6 June 2023 attached a schedule of 8,036 Temu URLs said to incorporate infringing content. The judgment records several weaknesses in how that schedule could be checked by the platform:

Image comparison screenshots were provided for only 287 product listings; Shein considered a full set of comparisons disproportionate.
One Shein listing image was used to complain against 477 Temu listings.
There were errors in numerous Shein website links in the schedule, and some links could not be opened and redirected to error pages.
Temu reviewed listings manually for a time and then removed the remaining listings in bulk without further review.

Applying the hosting test from Peterson v Google, the court held that the letter did not provide precise and substantiated information that would have allowed Temu to establish the illegality of the photographs without a detailed legal examination.

Why a list of URLs is not a case file

A schedule of links tells the platform where to look, not why the content is unlawful. For each listing, the reviewer has to answer three questions: what is the original, what exactly on this listing copies it, and on what basis does the notifier own the right. If the answer exists only as a link to a page that may already have changed, the reviewer has to rebuild the case alone, and at scale that rarely happens.

There is a second gap that only shows up in court. The judgment notes that the evidence did not disclose the date on which one of the sample products was delisted; the court had to infer that it was most likely within about a month of going online. When damages depend on how long something was available, or on whether a takedown was caused by a notice or an order, a missing date becomes an argument.

The per-listing evidence pair

The practical answer is to treat every listing in a notice as its own small exhibit. For each one, keep:

a dated capture of the infringing listing as it appeared, with its exact URL, seller name and listing ID;
the matching original: your product page or the original image file, with its own date;
a short note saying what is copied (which image, which text) so the reviewer does not have to guess;
the basis of your right, for example the assignment or licence that covers that photograph;
the date and reference of the notice in which the listing was reported;
the platform's response and the date the listing came down or reappeared.

A record like this does not prove ownership. Title comes from your contracts and records, and no capture tool can supply it. What a dated pair does is make each allegation checkable by someone who was not there.

Record the takedown, not only the listing

Most teams capture the infringement and stop. The Shein v Temu counterclaim shows why the end of the story matters too. If a listing comes down, the dates may later be relevant to damages, to the question of which notice or order caused the removal, and to whether the seller came back under a new URL.

The simplest way to fix this is to keep checking the same addresses after the notice. A scheduled check of a known listing URL, sealed each time, produces a series: the listing is live on day one, still live on day five, gone on day six. Each entry is a separate record with its own time, so nobody has to rely on memory or on an undated screenshot taken later.

The same logic under the EU Digital Services Act

The UK case was decided under the UK hosting rules, but the EU uses a very similar standard. Article 16 of the Digital Services Act requires hosting services to accept notices that are sufficiently precise and adequately substantiated, and lists what a notice should contain:

a sufficiently substantiated explanation of why the content is said to be illegal;
a clear indication of the exact electronic location, such as the exact URL or URLs;
a statement confirming the notifier's bona fide belief that the information and allegations are accurate and complete.

Under Article 16(3), a notice with these elements gives rise to actual knowledge where it allows a diligent provider to identify the illegality without a detailed legal examination, which is the same yardstick the London court applied. Article 23 adds that online platforms must, after a warning, suspend processing notices from those who frequently submit manifestly unfounded ones. Bulk notices without substance are therefore a risk for the notifier in the EU as well.

A workflow for bulk takedown programmes

Seal your originals first: product pages and source image files, with dates, before any notice goes out.
Capture each infringing listing as a separate record and note its URL, seller and listing ID.
Pair each listing with its original and write one line on what is copied.
Check title for every work you rely on and keep the document reference with the pair.
Send notices in batches you can substantiate, rather than one schedule for everything.
Keep checking the reported URLs on a schedule until they stay down, and record the date they disappear or come back.

For a large programme this costs more time at the start, but it shortens disputes later: the platform, the seller and, if needed, a judge can follow each listing from report to removal.

Which GetProofAnchor tool fits which step

Website Monitoring covers the follow-up. You add the reported listing URLs as monitors with daily or weekly checks; every check is a separate proof sealed with a qualified eIDAS timestamp, and you get an e-mail when the page changes. Monitoring watches known addresses only; it does not search for new listings. Plans: Business 99 € per month with 10 monitors, Monitoring 50 at 399 € and Monitoring 100 at 599 € per month, prices excl. VAT.

Forensic Browser, a Windows desktop app, is built for the pair itself: capture your own product page and the infringing listing in one session, and seal your original image files from the computer, all in one package under one qualified timestamp. The output can be a PDF that validates in Adobe Acrobat Reader or a ZIP that verifies offline with the open-source gpa-verify. Annual licences start at 290 € excl. VAT.

For an urgent batch, Assisted Capture does the work for you: an Incident Pack covers up to 15 URLs for 349 € excl. VAT within six hours, and Rush covers up to 5 URLs within a guaranteed 60 minutes for 249 € excl. VAT. Single listings can also be captured in the web app from 9 € excl. VAT for three proofs.

None of these tools decides who owns the copyright or whether a listing infringes. A qualified timestamp gives a legal presumption of the accuracy of its date and time and of the integrity of the timestamped data under Article 41(2) of the eIDAS Regulation, recognised in all member states under Article 41(3); it says nothing about the truth of the content. If you want to see what a sealed record of one of your listings looks like, write to sales@getproofanchor.com and we will capture one URL as a free sample.

FAQ

Did Shein lose because its evidence was weak?

No single reason decided the case. The claims failed mainly on copyright title and on the law of infringement, and the court held that Temu would anyway have had the hosting defence. The findings about the notices concern whether Temu had the knowledge needed to lose that defence, and they are a useful lesson for anyone sending notices at scale.

Do I need a comparison for every listing in a notice?

The judgment does not set a fixed rule, but it found that a schedule of 8,036 URLs with comparisons for 287 listings did not give precise and substantiated information. Under DSA Article 16 the notice must explain why each item is illegal. A short per-listing pair is the safest way to meet that.

Does a qualified timestamp prove that I own the photographs?

No. It proves when the captured data existed and that it has not changed since. Ownership comes from your employment contracts, assignments or licences. Keep those references next to each evidence pair.

Can monitoring find new infringing listings for me?

No. Website Monitoring checks addresses you give it, on a schedule. It is useful after a notice, to record whether and when a listing came down or came back, not for discovering new sellers.

Does the Digital Services Act apply to UK takedowns?

No. The DSA applies to services offered in the EU. Shein v Temu was decided under the UK hosting rules in the Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002, which follow a similar knowledge test. Many marketplaces operate in both, so a notice built to the DSA standard usually works for both.

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Not legal advice. A qualified timestamp proves time and integrity of the sealed data, not who owns the right.

Shein v Temu: a list of URLs is not a case file