Takes guts for this ebay seller to put a pic with MY watermark on his auction!

Raufus

I was just going to list a 2006 w plat. Naturally, I took at look at the current listings. I thought that the pic in this listing looked familiar - it has my watermark (t4biophage) from the pic when it appeared in my listing for the whole set which just ended (and has been relisted as a single).

I'm surprised that a seller with such a high and 100% + FB is stealing pics....

Stolen pic from my auction with MY watermark!

AUandAG

Nice compliment.

Report that he's stolen your picture to ebay.

bob

Raufus

Done. I was tempted to ask the seller if, as his listing states "I BUY AND SELL WITH FULL INTEGRITY KNOWING I HAVE TO ANSWER TO THE HIGHEST AUTHORITY." then WHY is my photo on your listing, but I figure it's best to just report it.

thebeav

This kind of thing always strikes me as odd.....
It really is almost as easy to just take your own pix as it is to steal them......

Raufus

<< <i>This kind of thing always strikes me as odd.....
It really is almost as easy to just take your own pix as it is to steal them...... >>



This is especially so as he took the time to blur the cert number. Very surprising behavior from a seller of so many high-end moderns. His by-line about "selling with full integrity and answering to a higher authority" is just icing on the cake. Priceless.

ModernCoin

I just sent this via the ask a question:

Subject: Question regarding...

Question: ...the "Highest Authority" you answer to. Exactly who is this higher authority and would he/she be pleased knowing that you steal pictures for your auctions WITHOUT permission from the owner? If you check my feedback you'll see I've purchased burnished platinum in just the last couple of weeks, but thankfully I was alerted to your dishonesty before making an offer on this coin. How about showing a little integrity and either disclosing the fact the coin pictured is not yours, or better yet just show a picture of your coin. Thank you for your time...

Raufus

Fantastic!!! Thanks. Please share the response (if any). Best, R-

DennisH

I look forward to hearing the seller's reply to this one!

lordmarcovan

I confess, I've recycled other people's coin pictures before (usually with permission), but only when I physically own the coin in question, and I edit out watermarks before I do. (I'm a decent photo editor but a lousy photographer.)

Dumb to do it if you don't own the coin in question, and even if you do, it's kinda lazy to not take your own pix or at least crop out the watermark.

I've seen funny results a time or two when somebody was so lazy they stole not only the picture, but the original owner's URL, as well, leaving themselves vulnerable for a picture switch when the owner finds out his picture was stolen.

kiyote

LordM, sorry to hear about Oreo!

jesbroken

This ebay seller may be a great photographer, but just does not happen to have a coin to photograph. hmm! Just a possibility.
Jim

nwcoast

Copyrights went the wayside with the proliferation of the web.
It sucks out there for most photographers...

I wonder if it's possible that the photo was offered under the option to "sell one like this" that appears when initally composing a listing?
Just an idea.... Really don't know.

GoldClause

Did he change the pic? I don't see a watermark.

Wingsrule

A new picture has been uploaded to the auction in question (per the seller's response).

ModernCoin

<< <i>Fantastic!!! Thanks. Please share the response (if any). Best, R- >>



He simply replied with "... ", but at least he changed the pic . Granted greater crimes have been committed other than ripping a pic, but anyone talking about answering to a higher authority while talking about integrity deserves a slight poke or two for "borrowing" a picture .

messydesk

Not that I sell squat on eBay anymore, but I've thought of adding the text, "Any further use of the photos in this auction implies acceptance of my photo licensing agreement, available upon request." The licensing agreement would be something ridiculous like $500 per appearance, plus $100 per day. Of course, I'd probably never be able to collect from a thief.

Casman

If you reported it Ebay would likely still pull it and hit the seller with a policy violation.

I'd had forum members take my pics and it's really not a big deal except when my item is still listed. Talk about causing confusion...I'd seen one of my items with great bids, only to click it and find it wasn't mine...LOL..With that said, if it's a raw coin then I have a big problem with that, especially with no disclosure.

mingot

Reminds me of something that happened a while back. I had written a guide on how to use some software that I wrote complete with screenshots and captions. Spent a load of time on these. Someone decided to write a new guide for the "textspeak" generation as mine used big words like "prerequisite". But they did decide to keep using my screenshot images. They simply linked to the images on my server.

I went ahead and copied my images to new filenames, updated my guide to point to me new copies and then replaced the existing images with the vilest pornography you could possibly imagine so that those showed up in this new guide. The guy made his own captioned screenshots pretty quickly after that.

To bad these stolen images were hosted by google, or you could had some real fun with the listing.

TwoSides2aCoin

<< <i>

<< <i>Fantastic!!! Thanks. Please share the response (if any). Best, R- >>



He simply replied with "... ", but at least he changed the pic . Granted greater crimes have been committed other than ripping a pic, but anyone talking about answering to a higher authority while talking about integrity deserves a slight poke or two for "borrowing" a picture . >>



I guess you were the "higher authority" since he answered to you.

Raufus

Thanks for all of your support on this one guys. I appreciate it.

Looks like you all saved the seller the policy violation which he would have received had my pic still been up when Ebay investigated my report.

Had I not been selling at the same time I would not have cared at all.

If someone buys one of my coins and wants to use my images, no problem.

It's only when I'm selling the same coin and another seller uses my images to compete with me w/o asking that I get a bit miffed.