Good news for sellers.

[ittybitnot]

If you don't feel like taking your own pictures and writing your own description...not to worry.  Just use someone else's on eBay.  Its ok now, and no longer a policy violation.  

See today's Weekly Chat.  The first post is from the user that is having issues with photo thieves.  See message #3. The second is the first reply from ebay staff, see message #8 that says and message #22 that says:

"I understand that many sellers invest large amounts of time and money into their listing photos and this is a great practice for their businesses. While we no longer consider it a violation for another member to use your photos, you do have the option of messaging the seller and asking them politely to not use your photos to see if they would be able to choose an alternative. Keep in mind, they are not violating eBay policy if your photos have been used on the site, so this should be framed as a friendly request if you choose to contact them. "

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-Chat-with-eBay-Staff/Community-Chat-May-8-1-00-pm-PT-General-To...

This seems very contrary to providing a great buyer experience:  Show them Item A, and ship them Item B.  We have been wondering why, even if a seller becomes a Vero member, their complaints go ignored.  Next thing we know all the sellers of CCC will be using photos of the REAL thing in the name of (insert your word of the day) consistency, efficiency .  

Quotes from the discussion:

"As for our adjustment to allow for photos posted to eBay to be used by any seller, this was introduced as a part of our focus on product based shopping and...."

"Allowing our sellers to utilize photos that match the product they are selling creates consistency and efficiency within our platform, allowing for a better experience overall. "

Good luck with this, be you a buyer or a seller.  I do not see this as a "good thing" whatsoever.  I look at it more that ebay got tired of dealing with it, so made it OK to do and no longer against the rules. 

[dasarock]

hrmmm ... thoughts on all sellers calling calling cust svc and oh spending an hour phone call ea regarding their questions thoughts and why ebay thinks this is a good policy change for everyone? i mean, if ebay has to spend several thousand man-hours answering regarding this issue then maybe, just maybe they might take notice of sellers concerns?

[abfabvintage]

@gamersbaystore 

Hi, always appreciate your informative posts. I also replied to Trinton late Friday afternoon. Don't expect an answer until Monday, hopefully.

My question to you: should I somehow copyright my images (have no clue how), and/or join Vero (and again, no clue how to do that)...I work really hard on taking pix, writing scripts, filling in both ebay IS (which are usually not applicable), and entering my own IS to at least get visibility not just on ebay but on google. And I want protection not just for the images but for my well thought out and thoroughly researched scripts. To have someone "steal" them is just beyond me. And another point: you don't know who is doing it unless for some reason you go to the ebay search to see where your active items sits...

I am probably the smallest fish in this sea, and what I list is not anything that would be in the ebay catalogue. I look at this catalogue as New only. And I know I am right that the catalogue is for New when ebay says to start using IS more efficiently for those not in the "catalogue." 

P.S. LOL. Just got a warning when trying to send you my reply that I have invalid HTML content in my reply. NOT. Just craziness. Pure craziness.

[mam98031]

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/listing-and-marketing/verified-rights-owner-program.html

[abfabvintage]

Thanks, Mam. Waiting for reply from Djdaniel. Appreciate your help. 

[city*satins]

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@hillbillymedia wrote:

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@myjunqueyourtreasure wrote:

I was so royally po'd when I read his week's chat.

So apparently it's perfectly fine and all hunky dory to steal another seller's photos and text, but woe betide anyone who steals a manufacturer's pictures or text, 'cos that's a big fat VERO no no.

Basically, yet one more time (and they've done it in SO many different ways over the years) they're saying again the seller's time and effort is worth ZIP (zero, nil, zilch, nada)

---

I agree and for me it`s more than that. Stealing text word for word is plagiarism plain and simple. Taking someone else`s work and ideas for profit is theft of intellectual property plain and simple. Just because ebay has their butts covered under UA doesn`t make it OK to do these things because I now "have permission" from ebay to do so.

Right is right and wrong is wrong. This is clearly wrong and ebay is wrong for allowing it to happen because they don`t want to pay to police their site IMO.

---

I kind of miss the good old days when we had to use external webspace for pictures and link to the pics in the listing body.   A high percentage of picture theft back then consisted of hotlinking to your pic. 

Back then you could just replace your pics a day or two after the auction with something xxx-rated and a message to the effect that if you were seeing this pic, the seller had stolen your pic AND your bandwidth and that if they'd steal another seller's intellectual property, they might steal your money too.

Now, the 12 free pics that seemed so great, turn out not to be so great after all.  Upload them to eBay and they no longer belong to you.

[gamersbaystore]

You don't have to register copyrights in order for them to be legal. Any content you create is automatically protected under U.S. copyright laws. Although, If you chose not to register your copyrighted content, you can still sue those who infringe your work, but you most likely wont be eligible to receive any compensation; though there are some circumstances where courts will still reward for monetary damages anyway.

Without a registered copyright, those who infringe on your work will still be forced to cease and desist the use of your content.

Here's a guide to help you understand the process:

https://theartistsjd.com/dmca-takedown-notice/

One thing to note with that guide, you don't have to send the DMCA notice to the webhost, but you can if you wish. In ebay's case, the DMCA would need to be submitted to their legal department.

A DMCA notice is a legal notice. I hope this helps 🙂

[abfabvintage]

@gamersbaystore 

Thanks as usual, I knew you would be able to get me some kind of answer. I don't necessarily want to sue or receive compensation, I just want the ability to stop others from copying my work including pictures, text, item specifics, the whole shebang. It is just flat out plagiarism. It takes a lot of time and research to create these listings. They are not boilerplates like most now on ebay which are New products. 

The other problem here is, you will never know if anyone stole your information unless you happen upon it like maybe through search like I did for my vintage planter. Another point I want to make. Suppose the seller who stole my info makes a sale and I can prove the information belongs to me, I should be able to say, hey, you owe me a portion of your sale lololol as I did all the work like I was your unpaid employee lolol.  Ain't ever going to happen.  

When ebay came out with this earlier version of this policy of pix belong to them, I stupidly thought it only related to their NEW catalogue. I guess I was wrong. They now can take any and all.

[fultonfalcon]

     THE REAL DANGER I SEE, is when a seller sells something by using your pictures and then gets sued and you get drug into court because by putting your pictures on eBay you agreed to share them making you possibly responsible for the fraud  You can say it won't happen but if I am the attorney of the the litigant filing the suit, then you can bet your bippy I'm coming after you too.

This is a bad, really bad policy statement.    It's been going on a long time, but because there was no official policy I could just flat claim the theft of my pictures was just that, a theft.  Now eBay has made them public property.  NO Thought given to this one.

[greg5000]

---

@ittybitnot wrote:

If you don't feel like taking your own pictures and writing your own description...not to worry.  Just use someone else's on eBay.  Its ok now, and no longer a policy violation.  

See today's Weekly Chat.  The first post is from the user that is having issues with photo thieves.  See message #3. The second is the first reply from ebay staff, see message #8 that says and message #22 that says:

"I understand that many sellers invest large amounts of time and money into their listing photos and this is a great practice for their businesses. While we no longer consider it a violation for another member to use your photos, you do have the option of messaging the seller and asking them politely to not use your photos to see if they would be able to choose an alternative. Keep in mind, they are not violating eBay policy if your photos have been used on the site, so this should be framed as a friendly request if you choose to contact them. "

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-Chat-with-eBay-Staff/Community-Chat-May-8-1-00-pm-PT-General-To...

This seems very contrary to providing a great buyer experience:  Show them Item A, and ship them Item B.  We have been wondering why, even if a seller becomes a Vero member, their complaints go ignored.  Next thing we know all the sellers of CCC will be using photos of the REAL thing in the name of (insert your word of the day) consistency, efficiency .  

Quotes from the discussion:

"As for our adjustment to allow for photos posted to eBay to be used by any seller, this was introduced as a part of our focus on product based shopping and...."

"Allowing our sellers to utilize photos that match the product they are selling creates consistency and efficiency within our platform, allowing for a better experience overall. "

Good luck with this, be you a buyer or a seller.  I do not see this as a "good thing" whatsoever.  I look at it more that ebay got tired of dealing with it, so made it OK to do and no longer against the rules. 

---

Just another reason to add to the list of many reasons I stopped buying here at eBay.

eBay Please Listen to the Opinions and Concerns of the Community and you will see that what you say goes against the grain of Common Sense.

[fultonfalcon]

Yep I bet that's right. No skin off eBay's nose if someone sues you for supplying the pictures some scam artist uses to scam a buyer. You can be held liable because you knew that was a possibility when you put your photo's up on eBay. Ouch!

[tdebuys]

Can we watermark our pictures to prove they are ours?  Or does eBay allow that?

[greg5000]

---

@mam98031 wrote:

I'm certainly sorry this policy has caught you off guard.  I remember how I felt when I read the update to the UA a few years back when they included this.  There was lots of chatter on the threads about it.  It was in an effort to support the Ebay catalog.  They also didn't want us watermarking our pics so that anyone could use them as well.  All this was happening around the same time.  

I know it is upsetting, but it isn't new.  It's been like this for a few years now.

---

It's an absurd policy and just because something has been around for a few years doesn't make it acceptable.  

This is just another reason I wouldn't want to buy here, as now you can't even trust the photos to be from the Seller who has the item.

[patriot4ever818]

I made 2 listings today and almost all the info was filled out ....just like the other place people sell on
I added a few specifics and the price and bam I was done
on non OOAk items its not a bad thing

[gamersbaystore]

I know what you mean, its often a game of cat and mouse to track down content thieves. Operating communities on Google+ for over 7 years before they closed, I saw first hand how people would scrape entire articles and republish them on their own websites. Then they would go and dump posts in my communities loaded with links to their stolen content. They usually did this with the intent to cash in on ads.

Before my time on Google+, I had no idea just how out of control the web was when it came to content scrapers. It wasn't something we tolerated on G+ either. If our mods reported them, Google always took our word for it.

Google had sophisticated algorithms that would flag suspicious posts, and they'd ask us what to do with them. Our response was always the same, throw them out with the trash, along with the poster's account. Google always did.

While ebay may not work as hard as it should to defend your intellectual property rights, you'd be surprised as to the great lengths Google goes to in order to protect your content. If other bay sellers copy and paste your images, text, etc, Google will penalize those pages in search results. They look at time stamps from their web crawlers to determine who the real owner of that content is.

As for ebay allowing others to use one's images, this is kind of a gray area. I don't agree with ebay's insistence that such actions as scraping others images, text, etc, is somehow acceptable because its in their catalog and their terms permit it. But despite ebay's terms, the laws and your rights remain the same. You can always use proper DMCA notices to demand your content be removed.

[div_style]

Annoying for most of us, but if you are selling the photo, potentially harmful to your business.  My suggestion in that case is to overlay a white strip across the photo.  Show only a low res unmarked photo and a hi-res marked photo.  Be sure to inform the buyer what's going on.