copyright violation

[north_of_sunset]

For the last month or so I'm seeing more and more artwork that's been scanned at hi res. printed on canvas and sold right here on ebay. Now unless I'm mistaken isn't that's what's called copyright infringement. I mean I see artwork by very well know and highly collected artist who's Ltd editons are no more than 5 to 10 years old being knocked of by more than one seller here on ebay. Am I missing something here. 

In the mid to late 2000s I would find find vintage surf photography reproduce it,frame it and sell it. Because of the old copywrite laws that were in place when these photos were taken. If the photo was fifty years or older you were leaglly able to reproduce these photos without any problems with breacking copywrite laws. But on the one or two odd times I didn't get my copywrite dates right. And the photographer who took the photo found out of what I was doing  I was in for a world of pain . First there would be an cease-and-desist letter from there laywers stating if I didn't stop reproducing there clients photograph I would be hit with a $250.000 law suit. Have the copywrite laws been rewriten or is it back to the old wild west days of the 1900s here on ebay when almost anything you wanted to do ,sell, or other wise was completlly ignored  

[afantiques]

I expect you are right about increased copyright infringement but threats of lawsuits do not trouble people with no assets, because they are simply not worth the powder and shot. Lawyers do not work for nothing, so unless there is a realistic prospect of collecting some damages, action will be limited to the odd letter.

People with no assets living outside the jurisdiction of US law are doubly immune.

Copyright holders can use the ebay VERO program to have stuff removed from sale.

This does mean they have to hunt and report infringing items.

People who have purchased copyright items legitimately do have the right to sell them on later if they want to.

[all_fakes]

Afantiques is correct. Just to be clear, the person who has purchased the copyrighted item does not have the right to make and sell additional copies.

     If you wanted to, you could track down the copyright owner(s), and notify them of the infringement so that they could use the ebay VeRO program to ask that the offending listings be taken down.

Ebay is quick to respond to that type of report, but only the copyright holder can use the VeRO program; ebay will generally not act on reports of copyright infringement that are made by uninvolved third parties.

While it may be hard to track down the copyright holders, some are very easy to find; Disney; Gibson Guitars, for example.   Gibson's website has a form for reporting copyright violation, and Gibson is very vigorous in enforcing their copyrights.

But that is not true of many copyright owners.