AliExpress Stole My Product Photos — What Actually Works

Finding your own product photography on an AliExpress listing — or discovering a near-identical version of your product for sale on Temu — hits differently than most infringement. These aren't small operators who might not know better. It's usually mass sourcing, done at a scale where your specific product is just one more image in a supplier's catalog. That doesn't make it less frustrating. It does change what a realistic response looks like.

This guide covers why this happens, what evidence to gather, what the platforms' own reporting routes look like in general terms, and what to actually expect if you file a report. A note on precision up front: we say "listings that may be using your images," not "counterfeits," because only you can judge whether a specific listing crosses into infringement — a monitoring tool can flag a match, it can't make that call for you.

Why this happens at scale

Cross-border marketplaces like AliExpress and Temu host enormous numbers of third-party sellers, many of them sourcing products and images from wherever they can find them — sometimes from wholesale suppliers who've scraped listing photos from smaller brands' own storefronts, sometimes from sellers who lift images directly because there's little practical deterrent to doing so. Image theft at this scale is largely a function of volume and low enforcement friction, not a targeted decision to copy your brand specifically. That's general commentary on how these marketplaces tend to work, not a claim about any particular seller's intent — every case is different, and jumping to a conclusion about motive isn't necessary to justify reporting the listing.

The practical upshot: you're not going to out-argue this at the seller level. The lever that exists is the platform's own reporting process, and it's worth using deliberately rather than emotionally.

Building your evidence first

Before you report anything, put together the same kind of record you'd want if someone challenged your claim later:

Screenshots of the infringing listing — full page, including photos, title, description, seller name, and listing URL. Listings on these platforms can be edited or delisted quickly once a seller notices attention, so capture it now.
The listing URL and the date/time you found it.
Proof your photos or product predate theirs — your own listing's publish date, an earlier marketplace listing, a website archive, invoices from your photographer or original file metadata showing creation date. This is the single most useful thing you can have: whoever can show their content is older generally has the stronger claim.
Anything that shows direct copying rather than coincidence — your exact photo (even cropped, mirrored, or recolored), a background detail or prop only explainable as a reuse of your image, a description that echoes your specific wording.

If your images have shown up on multiple listings or multiple platforms, keep a simple running list — URL, platform, date found — rather than trying to remember which report covered which listing.

The platforms' own reporting routes

Both AliExpress and Temu operate their own rights-holder reporting portals, separate from general customer support — web-form-based systems where a brand or individual registers as a rights holder and then reports specific listings against that registration. That general shape (register once, then report per-listing) is consistent with how comparable programs work on Etsy and eBay.

We want to be direct about a limitation here: unlike our guides for Etsy and eBay, we have not independently walked through and verified AliExpress's or Temu's exact registration steps, required fields, or review process field-by-field. What follows is general orientation, not a verified process — treat it as a starting point, and rely on whatever the live portal actually asks for when you get there.

AliExpress runs an IP protection portal (commonly referred to as the IPP) intended for rights holders to register and submit reports against listings they believe infringe their trademark or copyright. As with most rights-holder portals, expect to be asked to establish who you are (business/brand information, contact details) and to provide some form of proof of rights or ownership before your reports are reviewed.
Temu operates its own IP/brand-protection reporting channel for similar purposes — a registration step followed by a per-listing report submission.

In both cases, expect a review period before any action is taken, and expect no removal to be guaranteed — the platform, not the reporting tool or the rights holder, makes the final call based on what's submitted.

If there's no clear IP portal, or the seller is off-platform entirely

Sometimes the theft isn't on AliExpress or Temu themselves — it's your photos showing up on a standalone storefront, a print-on-demand site, or somewhere with no dedicated IP-reporting system at all. In that case, a standard DMCA takedown notice sent to the site's designated copyright agent (findable via the U.S. Copyright Office's Designated Agent Directory, or a "Copyright"/"DMCA" link in the site's footer) is the applicable tool — it's a copyright mechanism, not a trademark one, so it covers copied photos and text but not standalone claims about your brand name being used without permission. If no agent is listed, the site's hosting provider is also obligated to respond to a valid notice.

One thing worth knowing before you send any DMCA notice: the certification at the bottom is made under penalty of perjury, and U.S. law (17 U.S.C. § 512(f)) allows someone hit with a knowingly false or reckless takedown claim to recover damages and legal costs from the person who filed it. That's not a reason to avoid filing a legitimate claim — it's a reason to be sure of your facts (the evidence-gathering step above) before you do.

Honest expectations

A few things worth knowing before you file anything:

Cross-border enforcement is genuinely harder than a domestic marketplace's own listing takedown. Sellers, platforms, and applicable law can span multiple countries, and turnaround times are typically slower and less predictable than a same-country process.
No platform publishes a guaranteed timeline, and no honest guide should promise you one. Reports can take anywhere from days to weeks, and some go nowhere without a follow-up.
A specific, well-documented report is still your best lever. Vague reports ("someone's selling something like my product") get deprioritized behind reports with exact URLs, exact evidence of copying, and clear proof of who owns what.
It's still worth doing. Even with slower and less certain outcomes, a documented report is the mechanism that exists — and every report also builds a record that matters if you ever need to escalate further (legal counsel, a platform account-level complaint, or a broader enforcement effort).

Where Craftwatch fits — and where it doesn't

We want to be straightforward about scope: Craftwatch's monitoring currently covers Etsy only — not AliExpress, not Temu, and not yet eBay (that integration is built but waiting on marketplace approval). That's an honest limitation of what we check today, not a claim we're avoiding.

Where that can still be useful to you: stolen product images are often reused across several marketplaces rather than just one, so if your photos have surfaced on AliExpress or Temu, it may be worth checking whether they've also been picked up on Etsy. Our free counterfeit exposure check searches Etsy for listings that may be using your images and builds a plain-English report with side-by-side comparisons, so you have a documented starting point. No card required, no commitment.

To request one, email nonemanbandbusiness@gmail.com with your shop URL, or read more at craftwatch.nonemanband.com.

One further gap worth naming: we don't yet cover framed wall art, prints or printable/digital art. Photos of framed artwork are dominated by the frame and the wall, so our image matching isn't accurate enough on that category for us to stand behind a result. We're expanding coverage over time, and we'd rather tell you plainly what we cover today than overstate it.

Craftwatch, by NoneManBand, is a preparation tool, not legal advice. Whether a specific listing infringes your rights, and what to do about it, is a judgment only you — or an attorney, if you engage one — can make.