Twenty One Pilots sue Temu over fake merchandise

Posted On September 10, 2025September 10, 2025

Rock band Twenty One Pilots have launched a lawsuit against the Chinese website Temu over the sales of fake merchandise.

Temu, which is an acronym for Team Up Price Down, is an e-commerce giant which now operates around the globe and offers highly discounted goods to consumers. In the second quarter of 2025 alone, Temu’s owner, PDD Holdings, posted revenue of $14.53 billion, according to Reuters.

Now, Twenty One Pilots have sued the Chinese retailer and claimed that Temu is a “veritable swamp of infringing and otherwise illegal products”, including “blatant copies” of their own merchandise.

Lawyers working on behalf of the band, who release their new album Breach on September 12th, wrote in a complaint, which has since been obtained by Billboard, “Temu is widely understood to be one of the most unethical companies operating in today’s global marketplace.”

The lawyers continued: “Instead of policing its products to guard against infringement, it chooses to profit from sales of such products, in disregard of artist and brand rights.”

They also claimed: “Temu’s pattern of flouting the law and attempting to exploit the hard work and creativity of others without consent is manifest in the claims at issue here.”

In the lawsuit, the lawyers highlighted several examples of allegedly unauthentic Twenty One Pilots merchandise, including one t-shirt that retails for $35 but is available to purchase on Temu for only $7.54.

In addition to alleging that Temu is selling fake merchandise, the lawsuit reportedly also accuses the e-commerce company of using forced labour, aiding the Chinese Communist Party and selling toxic lead products.

It also accused Temu of selling goods that promote “homophobia, inciting violence, and violent criminal gang activity”, attaching examples of a t-shirt related to the MS-13 gang and another which reads, “I’m Violently Homophobic”. The lawsuit describes these shirts as “the tip of the iceberg”.

Last month, Sony Music’s Ceremony of Roses made a filing in the New York courts regarding the sale of knock-off Benson Boone merchandise ahead of his shows at Madison Square Garden.

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