[Sew-Classic]

Two eBay listings are using my photos AND "copy+pasted" plagiarized text from my copyrighted content on my blog to sell their items. The photos show up on the listings WITH the "Sew-Classic" watermark right on them.

I've jumped through all of eBay's reporting hoops- faxed them the required forms, etc....

Trust me, some of these photos are older, and not even all that great, but they are MINE, and I do not thinkthat someone else should be using them to make money. BTW, selling stuff is a commerical venture.

OK rant over.

---

Last edited by Sew-Classic; 12-18-2009 at 11:54 AM.

[sharathk]

if it helps:

Ebay Stolen Pictures | knittsings

It sucks when someone steel your work, I fell for you dude.
Sounds like you've already done everything you need to do but I find an invoice always works and is very satisfying.

[Sew-Classic]

One of the sellers contacted me back, explaining that their verbatim copy and paste of several paragraphs from my blog was "fair use" because it just contained general knowledge.

Guess again.

If it was a commentary or spoof about my writing, that's one thing, but word for word, copied and pasted and used for commerical gain/selling a product.- that's just down right plagiarism.

This seller did remove the watermarked photos, but is clinging to the copy and pasted text.

The other seller just ignored me. Photos and text still in place.

I have opted out of the eBay sharing policy, but these are photos from my blog, that have been stolen, not photos from another eBay lisitng.

I'll have to wait and see if eBay does anything. I did fill out their form and fax it to them within minutes of receiving it.

The odd thing is that neither my writing nor my photos are all that good. It's just that people are too lazy to take their own pictures or write their own stuff. Hey, why should they when they can just steal it from me??

---

Last edited by Sew-Classic; 12-18-2009 at 03:33 PM.

[Wheatfield]

Send a DMCA Takedown Notice to eBay.

[Sew-Classic]

Already did that- I faxed it to them per their instructions.

[Jasvox]

chances are, if this is an individual seller or very small business, you are spinning your wheels for nothing. I am not saying it's justifiable, just probably not going to get you anywhere.

Jason

[Sew-Classic]

GOOD NEWS!

After filing the appropriate paperwork with eBay (via fax), they DID take down both of the offending listings with my photos and the "copied & pasted" text from my blog.

I know that some folks think that I should just roll over and do nothing when I find somebody else making money off of my stolen work (either my photographs or writing). Granted, I do understand that I may not always be successful in getting a person to stop stealing my work. However, I reject the notion that I should become a willing doormat for all the lazy people that want to steal from me instead of doing their own work.

[Wheatfield]

If you code your own pages, you can put in little bits of html that will prevent the casual thief from absconding with your intellectual property.
If you want to get serious, then look into encryption.
This is a good program:
Encrypt HTML source, Javascript, ASP. Protect links & images. HTML encryption

[Sew-Classic]

I use a godaddy service for my blog, and I haven't figured out how I could add the javascript yet.

Personally, I think it would reduce and discourage theft, but certainly It doesn't take a genius to work around this code.

I recently came upon a site that had it, and I wanted to see if I could save the photo to my desktop and view the exif information. It was pretty easy.

If I really want to make all of my text and photos secure, I wouldn't ever put them on the internet, but that makes it pretty tough to run an online business.

I am getting tired of issuing DCMA takedown notices, so I am going to have to come up with some better system.

[johnmflores]

Good for you, Sew-Classic, defending your work!