eBay auction warning

[AmberDaze]

IMO, that could be viewed as copyright infringement. I have been there unfortunately, regarding the theft of my own images I have used on my websites. There is a DMCA-email that you must use in order to have someone listen to your request to have an image removed. If I were you, if this person infringes on your copyright again -- do not ask them to remove the image. Use a DMCA-compliant email and sent it to ebay. They will take appropriate action.

IMO, this happens way too often, and should not be taken lightly. Is that Imageshack image your link? If not, and this person is still hosting an image of yours on their Imageshack account, send Imageshack a DMCA-compliant email to have it removed.

I have pasted a template of the DMCA-compliant email that I always use, should you ever need it. It is written from the respect of theft from a website, but you can revise it for personal image theft as well.

I hope you find this helpful.

=====================

Your Name, Address, Email

Date

To:

Re: Copyright Infringement / Illegal Bandwidth usage

To Whom It May Concern:

It has come to my attention that a webpage on your server has infringed upon my copyright. My name is ________ and I am the rightful owner of the website ___________, of which the offending website has infringed upon our copyright without permission.

Your Terms of Agreement states:

#5 (ii) “your Content does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyright rights, or other intellectual property rights of any person."

#6 "Copyright Policy. You may not post, distribute, or reproduce in any way any copyrighted material, trademarks, or other proprietary information without obtaining the prior written consent of the owner of such proprietary rights."

I am sending the following, which includes information to meet the guidelines of the DMCA. Please see below:

1. Date and time, including AM or PM, and time zone, that the material was found. -- Material was found via stats on insert date here, at insert time here with EST, PST, etc.

2. Physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner. -- see signature

3. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed or a representative list if multiple works are involved. -- describe exactly what images or text is being stolen here. (URLs listed below:

http://www.
http://www.

4. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing that should be removed or access to disabled and information reasonably sufficient to enable the online service provider to locate the material (usually a URL to the relevant page). --The relevant page is below:

http://www.

5. Information reasonably sufficient to allow the online service provider to contact he complaining party (mailing & email address). -- See above.

6. Statement that the complaining party has "a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law." -- I will honestly say that I have never heard of, nor gave this person authorization or permission to use or pull any of our text or images from our website, on their website.

7. Statement that the information in the notice is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner. -- I authorize under penalty of perjury that I am the copyright owner, and the information that I have provided is true and accurate.

Please let me know if there is any other information that you need in order to proceed. I hope for a quick resolution to this matter.

Thank you so much for your time.

Sincerely,

Your Name
Owner/Administrator
List your website URLs here

===================



My Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but I have had much personal experience in defending my Internet copyrights and bandwidth.

 

[Lauralee]

Bob, I have another approach you may want to consider next time this happens to you (or anybody else on this board for that matter). I haven't done this myself, but I've seen and read about this happening to other ebay'ers. Change your image that is being "stolen" to some other funny/objectionable image. I've seen some hilarious switches! The best is a pic of a group of grannies sitting on motorcycles giving the "bird." Always include text in the pic that says something to the effect of "I was too lazy to make my own pic so I stole this one."

 

[AmberDaze]

Bob, I have another approach you may want to consider next time this happens to you (or anybody else on this board for that matter). I haven't done this myself, but I've seen and read about this happening to other ebay'ers. Change your image that is being "stolen" to some other funny/objectionable image. I've seen some hilarious switches! The best is a pic of a group of grannies sitting on motorcycles giving the "bird." Always include text in the pic that says something to the effect of "I was too lazy to make my own pic so I stole this one."

Unfortunately, that would only work if the infringer was stealing bandwidth and using the actual image URL, instead of copying the image onto their own host site.

 

[mtlhddoc2]

Amber - in this case, Bob cannot use copyright infringement since he does not own the images in question, Disney does. Only Bandwidth Theft would apply here, if in fact the person was linking to his image space.

I cannot stress this enough: any disney images you use here or elsewhere, whether created or complied by you or not, are property of the Disney Company/ Buena Vista - they are the license holders to these images and by law, you cannot modify or reproduce the items anywhere, whether on the web or in a publication without permission. For message boards and things of that nature, they choose to ignore the infringements. I went through this all with a Star Trek fan site I was a member of once upon a time. Paramount decided to crack down on unauthorized images and 45,000 sites had to remove every image which pertained to Star Trek in any manner that did not comply with the fair use laws, such as parody or informational (such as news casts). For profit or not does not matter.

 

[AmberDaze]

Amber - in this case, Bob cannot use copyright infringement since he does not own the images in question, Disney does. Only Bandwidth Theft would apply here, if in fact the person was linking to his image space.

It would appear I stand corrected.

eBay would have removed the images due to bandwidth theft, but if they had saved a copy of the image on their own hosting site, wouldn't eBay have removed it due to it being copyrighted by Disney as well? (Of course, that opens another issue since many of us are using Disney's images.)

 

[mtlhddoc2]

Exactly - Bandwidth theft has become a real issue on the web, especially with those free hosting sites. Ebay takes a very dim view of it, as it should.

But no, the injured party (Disney) did not complain, therefore they would not remove them.

Concerning the images on fan sites: Disney would be insane to restrict them, even though that is within their rights. It is akin to shooting oneself in the foot. They would tick off so many people (like Paramount did - did anyone ever see the ratings for Enterprise or Nemesis? Horrible) - you just dont alienate your fan base (see Metallica vs downloaders)

 

[AmberDaze]

...you just dont alienate your fan base (see Metallica vs downloaders)

Familiar with this one...thanks much for the info! But somehow...that would still bother me, you know? Creating an image that someone else could claim as their own? What would stop this thief from just saving a copy of the image the next time? There must be something...

 

[mtlhddoc2]

there is really nothing unless you can claim actual ownership the image in question - even putting the image in an uncopyable state, the "stealer" can still just take a screenshot and put it into paint or photoshop or whatever.

ebay does have protection for you, if you have an auction which includes that image, you can have it removed if your auction was posted first. (went through that one, someone stole a bunch of my auction images and I got them removed)

 

[Adventuredaz]

This is slightly off topic but related to the issue. This same principle applied to people who make guides on VMK or room and/or game designs and carries forward to any conceptual ideas that in the future Disney or any other party might use. Using the picture, or copying others work such as the guides or room or game designs is wrong but really Disney owns the rights to everything in this game including your character titles. I agree with Doc on this not much anyone can do really but Disney. Also, (and I may be corrected on this) I have been told as I have done some designs if you change a design by 5% then it can get you around this copy write issue – obviously with exception if it is obvious and blatant and remains undistinguishable, and again conceptual ideas can’t be copy written.

 

[darkacre]

I can tell you from personal experience that Disney can and sometimes does crack down on the use of its characters and copyrights, even if no money is being made and it is a 100% personal use made by the infringer. No, they do not go after the majority of users. They only do so if, for some reason, they want the use to cease. As for changing 5%, that does not get you around copyright laws. Yours could still be a derivative work, and derivative works can be infringements.

 

[FrontierNatasha]

As a lawyer I have to agree with Mal it is in fact ID theft. A case of ID theft need be no more than using something associated with a specific person which would most likely result in their reputation/credibility etc being called into question.

But then again the legal system may be different in Ireland to the USA although in general the laws governing fraud/id theft/slander etc have been internationally standardised it may well be however that some specifics could be different in the USA.

english plz?

 

[cteddiesgirl]

there is really nothing unless you can claim actual ownership the image in question - even putting the image in an uncopyable state, the "stealer" can still just take a screenshot and put it into paint or photoshop or whatever.

Actually, even an "uncopyable" state can still be copied and saved to your computer. In my quest of gathering pictures of old movies stars for my personal screensaver, I learned how to do that from a programmer.

...but really Disney owns the rights to everything in this game including your character titles.

Actually, they may own my character and they may make me change my character's name. But they do not own any rights to the name of cteddiesgirl.
I can prove that I am the only person to ever use it on the web and I have used it everywhere for several years. Long before VMK ever came into being.

 

[mtlhddoc2]

cteddie is correct on the username issue - a username is considered a personal idenifying mark, however, others can use it if it is not in use. In order to stop the use of the name it must be unique and be a registered trademark. For example: if your username is LarryC - they will deny the trademark because it is too common, but if it is ZephyrWindBlue - it should get approved for a trademark, at which case, Disney would deny the use of it altogether within their game.

 

[Hank's R&R]

The images have been removed....


.... or I have gone blind and somehow missed it. I am sure thats what it is....

 

[qruthie]

This should serve as a warning to anyone who posts pictures on web sites. There is nothing to prevent someone from using your picture for their own purposes good or bad. Sure, you can ask the person to stop using your picture or hire a lawyer if necessary, but the picture has already been used. Even if you were to sue the person for something like defamation of character, it's probably too late to undo the damage that you have suffered. In Bob's case, there may not be much harm done to him but people who saw the ebay listings and recognized his picture may have believed he listed the auctions or endorsed them. Unfortunately, that can't be 100% undone.

Bob is lucky that he discovered his picture being used and was able to get it removed. I suspect many people aren't aware when this stuff happens. In my opinion, Bob did the right thing by asking the ebay seller to remove the picture before contacting ebay or hiring a lawyer. I'm glad the seller removed the picture.

How do you identify the picture as yours? I've seen many pictures with a watermark or some sort of signature. That won't stop people from using your pictures but at least the person won't be able to claim them as their own. I realize that watermarks and signatures can be removed by people who have the necessary skills but they are the best protection I know of.

 

[zeniff]

watermark signature?

 

[mtlhddoc2]

Bob is lucky that he discovered his picture being used and was able to get it removed. I suspect many people aren't aware when this stuff happens. In my opinion, Bob did the right thing by asking the ebay seller to remove the picture before contacting ebay or hiring a lawyer. I'm glad the seller removed the picture.

I am glad it was taken care of too, because if he had tried to claim it as his own legally, he might have wound up in a lawsuit himself if Disney caught wind of it.

 

[Loves Disney]

Ebay is a skill...to understand. lol.

 

[cteddiesgirl]

cteddie is correct on the username issue -

 

[mtlhddoc2]

Well.... when you are right, you are right. All VMK can do is regulate the usernames, if they tried to claim any as their own, well, they would run into all kinds of issues there.