Ebay auctioneers stealing photos

[Randall]

Hi,
Inoticed an ebay auctioneer hotlinking one of my images as well as hijacking text off it to sell an item he has.

So... having gotten the idea from here long ago in a thread about hotlinkers, I replaced the image with a totally new one :)

ANyone want some laughs check this auction out and what I did to the image;

<snip>

Randall

[edited by: engine at 2:12 pm (utc) on July 28, 2004]
[edit reason] No urls, thanks. See TOS [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

[bcolflesh]

Highly amusing - but I would have used more extreme pics ;)

[fiestagirl]

Instead of that, why not do something more useful? Report image theft to ebay.
http:// pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/vero-image-text-theft.html

[BigDave]

Instead of just automatically reporting it, is there any way that you can use the situation to drive traffic to your site?

If the seller puts up a "photos courtesy of" link, it might be worth letting them hotlink. I did this one time and got over 100 visitors that followed that link.

With another, he took down our photos and with a third we had ebay take down the item along with the account because that user already had a complaint against them.

But my favorite incident of a hotlinked pic was one that I just had to let run its course. A reviewr took a picture of his dirty feet after testing a pair of sandals, and they got linked to from a foot fetish forum

[Randall]

Hehe thanks for the different views on this, actually Ebay is about as worthless as you can get as far as doing anything. I have a sculpture that someone knocked off and was selling up there and I reported it 4 times and all I get is their canned form response.

I took one person's comments to heart and decided to add a few more images but **** rated to really spice up his auction page ;)

Heck it seems I can just make the image longer and his whole page gets screwed up for loading time and his auction itself gets pushed further down the page the larger MY image becomes :)

Tonight I think I'll add even more to it and have some more laughs on him. I'm real glad the idea of switching images was posted on this site because it gave me the idea.

[pleeker]

Ebay is about as worthless as you can get as far as doing anything.

Hmmmm. Not in my experience. Have you signed up in eBay's VeRO (Verified Rights Owner) program?

Via my hobby site, I'm a VERO member and I've found it quite successful. I've reported several auctions that use pictures and content from my site without permission, and as long as I give eBay enough lead time, the auctions are always shut down.

I guess YMMV....

[phantombookman]

I get plagued by people asking for scans of books so they can use them on Ebay, often difficult to sort the customers out from the timewasters.

I put the website address on all my pictures so if they do get stolen at least it advertises the site.
Regards
Rod

[MatthewHSE]

This may be a silly question, but does anyone really think that the vast majority of Ebay "hotlinkers" even know that they're being impolite? In other words, do they have the slightest idea that there may be copyright issues, server resources, etc., that may make you unhappy if they hotlink to your image?

Believe it or not, I have actually known people who thought you couldn't copyright anything on the Internet - that by publishing it online, it automatically became public domain. These were not people who were just out to get whatever they could, whatever it cost others. They honestly, genuinely believed this and thought it was great that so many people were being so kind as to make their information available that way. In other words, think "warm fuzzy" instead of "just greedy."

So back to the topic at hand, do these Ebay hotlinkers even know they're doing wrong? If not, it seems that a polite e-mail to them might be better than ruining their auction and possibly their reputation by changing the image on them. If they reply nastily and say they can do whatever they want and you can't stop them, well, that might be the time to show them you can stop them! ;)

[Randall]

I noticed the Ebay seller has removed my hotlinked images and the text taken off my site, so it looks like he/she got the message loud and clear with the very spicy image I replaced those with.

In response to the last person who mentioned some people may not know what they are doing is objectionable. That maybe the case but my sub page on that particular hotel and it's history fromwhich the guy hotlinked the photos and grabbed text says;

Web page is Copyright © 2003 My Organization. All rights reserved.

HTML coded on a Macintosh with BBEdit. Updated 7/2/04

My main entrance page says:

All the images on this site are copyright by the author, permissions to re-use any of these is as simple as an e-mail request. Questions or comments? copy this address it is not clickable:

Another page in that folder where I borrowed material for the hotel history with floor plans and printed matetr provided by someone else to me to use on my site says:

All images on these pages are courtesy of Names and are (C) and owned by Names and Names and are used with the Names's kind permission.

I don't see how it can be any clearer than that!

[edited by: engine at 2:24 pm (utc) on Aug. 6, 2004]
[edit reason] removed specifics [/edit]

[yosemite]

Randall, I'm in the same situation as you have been. People are constantly hotlinking or stealing my images. Even though I've made a point of stating on every page that I am the copyright owner, saying that it is not allowed to publish or steal the images without getting permission first, etc. etc. I make it really clear, really specific. But people still steal.

I don't even think that they look. I don't think that they care.

I've replaced some stolen and hotlinked graphics with a graphic that has a message with something along the line of "copyright and bandwith thief" or just "thief" or something like that. So sometimes, guess what the thief does when they see that the graphic that they swiped is now replaced with this annoyed message from me? That's right—they go right back to my site and steal another image! Sheesh!

I figure, these people get what they get. In my case I don't put up spicy pictures. Usually I put up some nonsensical graphic (I used to use a picture of a tea bag—go figure) but most of the time I replace it with a message saying that they are a thief. Which they are. I think that the best way for people to get a clue is to actually have the hotlinked graphics they're swiping replaced with something else. Then they will see how vulnerable they can be when they hotlink.

Being polite and sending them an email is sometimes okay (and I've done that too at times), but I think it leaves a far more lasting impression when they actually see the graphic replaced with something else—something else that could be really embarrassing to them next time they steal. I especially think that they need this "lasting impression" when they steal from a page that has all sorts of copyright information on it. I mean, how dense can these people be? No sympathy if they end up getting embarrassed.

[Marcia]

I've had someone hotlinking a background image from ebay for ages. I finally put up hotlink protection and found out which image it is from the 404s. I should probably substitute something *interesting* in its place and just move the file instead of getting all those 404's.

I have actually known people who thought you couldn't copyright anything on the Internet - that by publishing it online, it automatically became public domain.

I had one lady swiping and plagiarizing text on a consistent basis. When I complained, the reply I got was "Lady, you've got some b*lls! Putting something up on the internet where everyone can see it is like standing out on Hollywood Blvd. naked and then complaining because someone saw your heiney."

I got another email a month later saying "Just to let you know - you are not normal."

Hotlinking is a constant problem with sites that display graphics, even when there's mention made on the exact page. That can be remedied, but the text thing is even a worse problem, especially when it's just your choice little phrases they grab.

[AWildman]

I'm sure this has been suggested before, but if you have images that you REALLY want to protect, couldn't you just cut your image into say four pieces, make a four celled table, and make each of the four pieces a background image for the cells? I mean, if you were really serious about protecting the image yet putting it on the Internet.

[Randall]

Hi Wild,
I have seen that photo splitting done but haven't seen the code to get the pieces to line up so well, how is it done?

[MarkWolk]

Print Screen will beat that, though.

[AWildman]

True enough. Print screen trumps all...so long as the thief is ambitious enough to actually do that.

[zulufox]

print screen will obviously beat that.. but thats not the point.

You dont have to make your photos 100% safe. You only have to be 1% SAFER than the other vendor.