The moment I discovered that my Arona cosplay photos were being directly used as the main product image by the Taobao shop "Miao Anime," as a passionate cosplayer, I felt nothing but utter shock and fury. This Blue and white style cosplay of Arona from Blue Archive was a project into which my photographer and I poured an immense amount of effort—from location scouting and pose choreography to post-production color grading, every step was infused with our aesthetic vision and hard labor. Yet, without obtaining any consent from me whatsoever, they brazenly slapped it onto their product listing to drive traffic. I am genuinely curious: your shop doesn't even sell the actual costume I'm wearing, so using someone else's face and work to engage in bait-and-switch deception is nothing short of blatant consumer fraud!
What struck me as most absurd was that when I messaged their customer service to confront them, rather than immediately taking down the images or apologizing, they casually tossed out: "Oh, this is customer feedback from a buyer." I was genuinely stunned into laughter by how ridiculous that was. Customer feedback? When did I ever consent to my photos being used as your "buyer review"? Because I publicly post this set on my own social media accounts, screenshotting and stealing my photos to pose as buyer reviews is taking copyright infringement and plagiarism to shameless new extremes. I replied with a question mark, and they threw back a flippant, patronizing pet name before immediately blocking me. This vile combo of mockery followed by an instant block truly showed me how low the ethical bar of unscrupulous merchants can sink.
That wasn't all. Once I warned them, "Get ready to be sued," and simultaneously notified my collaborating photographer, my photographer took an uncompromising stance, sternly warning them that we would initiate legal proceedings to protect our portrait rights and copyrights. Only then did the merchant panic, proactively reaching out to offer money to purchase my photos. At that point, I found this "remedy" even more laughable: you never intended to respect copyright from the start, using stolen images as marketing bait, and only thought of paying to "whitewash" yourselves when pushed to the brink of a lawsuit. Even if you paid for my photos, the garments you sell are still entirely different products, meaning you'd still be using my photos to deceive buyers who want high-quality costumes. That logic is fundamentally corrupt.
Since negotiation and warnings proved entirely futile and the seller stubbornly refused to delete the images, we had no choice but to pursue official channels for Cosplay rights protection. I submitted detailed complaint documentation through the Taobao Intellectual Property Protection Platform, uploading original publication timestamps and various copyright proof screenshots. The official platform processing was remarkably efficient: before long, the platform issued a definitive ruling, confirming that the infringing content had been removed and the main product listing image was forcibly taken down. Although the images were finally removed, I learned that this "Miao Anime" shop is actually a notorious repeat offender with a track record of image theft; numerous fellow cosplayers shared that their works had been covertly stolen for advertisements or slapped onto completely unrelated clothing products.
The reason I'm sharing this experience is to remind all my fellow creators who work hard on shoots: when you encounter someone stealing your photos directly for commercial gain, never waste your breath arguing with the seller. Go straight through official reporting channels or team up with your photographer to issue a lawyer's letter—that is what truly deters them. For audiences and buyers, I also hope you remain vigilant and recognize that when product hero images use other cosplayers' photos or random online imagery, they do not reflect the actual quality of the clothes being sold. Cosplay itself is born from pure passion and painstaking dedication; every single gleaming frame in our Anime-style photography is earned through the physical exertion and sweat of cosplayers and photographers alike. I hope everyone fiercely protects their works, that opportunistic merchants like this face widespread community boycotts, and that our creative anime landscape becomes cleaner and healthier moving forward.