Photos ripped off and sold on Ebay

[TonyG]

I have just made the discovery that a lovely person in Melbourne has ripped off a couple of my images from my Photobucket account and is selling them on Ebay.
The person is as follows:
http://stores.ebay.com.au/indys-memorabilia?_trksid=p4340.l2563

They have simply cropped my name out of them.

I have asked them to remove my images listed as follows and also filed a complaint with Ebay over copyright.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Dick-Johnson-8X12-SIGNED-Photo-V8-Supercars-FORD-PALMER-/290636958799?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item43ab500c4f

Original here
http://s448.photobucket.com/albums/qq204/TGPhotography/Australian%20Touring%20Car%20Legends/?action=view&current=DickJohnson-XEFalconGpCsm.jpg

and this one
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/290636958048?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com.au%3A80%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_from%3DR40%26_trksid%3Dp3902.m570.l1313%26_nkw%3D290636958048%26_sacat%3DSee-All-Categories%26_fvi%3D1&_rdc=1

Original here
http://s448.photobucket.com/albums/qq204/TGPhotography/Australian%20Touring%20Car%20Legends/?action=view&current=DickJohnsonSierraRS500GpAsm.jpg

I would suggest anyone who takes V8 Supercar photos and stores copies online for people to enjoy checks that they too have not been ripped off and that your images have a stamp across them.

These people really P..s me off.

Regards
Tony Growden

[TonyG]

Seems I am not alone;
http://www.v8central.com/snitz3403/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=34313

[Steve Holmes]

Yeah, wow, I'd be pissed off too. That sucks. And they've been completely blatant about it too. Have you heard back yet from Ebay?

[105angria]

forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=14869&st=80&start=80 GREAT THREAD ON COPYWRITE AUTOSPORT NOSTELGA FORUM

[TonyG]

Got this this morning - Useless as tits on a bull !!!
eBay Customer Support - vero vero@ebay.com

4:36 AM (1 hour ago)

to me
Dear Tony,

Thank you for faxing the eBay Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) Program your
Notice of Claimed Infringement.

We are more than happy to help you protect your intellectual property
rights. We reviewed the Notice of Claimed Infringement that you sent and
the listings that you identified.

290636958048
290636958799

The Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) Program is designed to process reports
of intellectual property infringement. From the information provided,
however, the nature of intellectual property infringement you are
attempting to report is unclear.

If you feel that the listings do infringe on your intellectual property
rights, please respond to this message and provide us with a more
detailed explanation.

If you'd like to report a stolen item, please go to:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/stolen.html

Thank you for your concern in helping to keep eBay a safe and reputable
forum in which to conduct business. We appreciate your interest in the
VeRO Program and look forward to receiving your response.

Sincerely,
Michael B.

[pallmall]

If you are going to store your photos in a public access web site like photobucket do not upload the original high res images, keep them low res.
Unfortunately any photos posted in the public domain are at the mercy of rip off merchants. I can't believe how many of my photos are on peoples Facebook pages, some with the watermark cropped out. But, at least they are low res versions that can not be printed bigger than 6 x 4, and not good print quality.

[TonyG]

Agree, and they are low res. I have just been reading back through this persons feedback and there are 2 that mention my shots and how poor the resolution is at 8 x 12 yet they claim that they are perfect. THere is even one that complains about Mark Webbers Signature being a photocopy and they say that they state on the listings that all signatures are just photocopies lol

[TonyG]

I got this respose from the seller;

Dear rcended,

Mate dont know what your talking about.. I bought this photo (signed) at the races...yours photos on photo buckets do not have the original signatures
- indygirl62

So if true which I doubt, they are openly admitting buying someone elses product and then onselling copies of it for monetary gain. Grrr!!!!

[TonyG]

A small victory but nothing to stop the seller relisting them I guess. vero@ebay.com.au

6:45 AM (4 minutes ago)

to me
Thank you for contacting us.

We are pleased to inform you that the following listing(s) you reported have been removed from eBay in response to the Notice of Claimed Infringement you recently sent:

indygirl62
290636958048
290636958799

We have notified the seller and all participating bidders that the listing(s) has been removed due to your request.

If the Notice of Claimed Infringement contained items that are not listed above you will receive a separate email communication about those items. These notices may arrive at different times (over a period of up to several hours) as items for different sellers are processed separately.

If you should have any questions or concerns regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

VeRO Program
eBay Trust & Safety

[TonyG]

Just got this as a follow up from Ebay and thought that it would be a useful link for everyone;

Dear Tony,

Thank you for writing eBay's Verified Rights Owners (VeRO) Program in
regard to our request for clarification on your Notice of Claimed
Infringement.

We appreciate you sending us the requested clarification. Welcome to
eBay's Verified Rights Owner's Program ("VeRO Program").

We received your Notice of Claimed Infringement. We have forwarded the
listings you reported for appropriate action. You will receive a
separate confirmation email regarding the specific action taken. We'll
let the seller and all the bidders know that we removed the listings at
your request.

The items were removed for reason code 3.2. Item(s) infringes copyrights
(for example, a bootleg recording of a live performance, a pirated copy
of media such as software or movies, or an unlawful copy of copyrighted
works such as text, paintings, or sculptures), as this is what you
described in your clarification email.

When reporting in the future, please remember the reason codes are
divided between whether or not the item itself is infringing or if
something in the listing content is infringing.

You can now search our site to look for potentially infringing items and
report these to us.

You have three options for reporting infringing items going forward.
The first – using our VeRO Reporting Tool - is strongly recommended as
it provides significant benefits to you and eBay.

1. Sign up for our VeRO Reporting tool, a tool that allows you to report
a listing directly from the body of the listing. As a VRT user, you get
a “Report Now” button at the bottom of each listing in the “View Item”
section which allows you to report the item to eBay directly from the
listing.

The benefits of the tool are significant:

• Reduced contacts from sellers since the information you enter will
help eBay educate sellers better. eBay will:
o Pass along a message to the seller with more detail on his/her VeRO
violations
o Direct sellers to eBay’s intellectual property tutorial (available
Fall 2005)
o Direct sellers to appropriate help pages (based on the reason codes
you select)
o Direct seller to your About Me page (if you have one)

• Ability for you to communicate directly with the seller through a
Message Box to:
o Give the seller more information about the nature of the infringement
o Tell the seller how to make the listing legally compliant (if
applicable)
o Explain legal penalties of intellectual property infringement

• Paperless – no need for faxes or emails

• Reduced time vs. reporting via fax or email
o Click on the “Report Now” button at the bottom of each listing
o Select two reasons from a drop down menu for why the listing is
infringing on your rights
o Add a personalized or standard message to the seller (via eBay), if
you so desire

To sign up for the VRT, please email us at vero@ebay.com.au and we will
send you a VRT user agreement to sign and will then set up your VRT
account.

2. Send your Notices of Claimed Infringement (NOCI) by email to
vero@ebay.com.au, a special email address dedicated to serving the needs
of rights owners and their representatives. It is important that such
notices substantially follow the form of the original notice. However,
if you choose this reporting method,eBay will be less able to help
educate sellers to reduce future potential infringements.

For your convenience, we have included an electronic version of our
Notice of Claimed Infringement form below. Fill in the blanks once and
save a copy for future use. It is fine to use your own form that
includes additional language, but be sure to include all the information
contained in our form.

3. Via fax. Fax us the filled out electronic NOCI form available
below to (02) 9475
0354.


Here's some additional information that should prove useful to you.

1. User Information. Through eBay's VeRO Program, you can request
detailed personal contact information about sellers. Please contact us
at vero@ebay.com.au to obtain a copy of our Personal Information
Agreement. We would, however, stress that eBay makes no guarantees
regarding the completeness or accuracy of this personal information.

2. Removed Listings. When we remove listings at the request of an
intellectual property rights owner, we notify the seller and bidders by
email. While we trust that rights owners endeavor to be as accurate and
as fair as possible in requesting the removal of listings, we understand
that mistakes can be made. To that end, the listing removal messages we
send to sellers contain the name and email address of the rights owner.
That way our users have the ability to contact you to obtain
clarification. Many users genuinely lack information about why their
item or description is infringing. If you believe an error has been made
or for some other reason want to allow the user to relist the item,
simply email us at vero@ebay.com.au and let us know. Be sure to identify
the item number of the listing removed. We can't allow relisting unless
we hear from you.

3. Create an eBay "About Me" page that will be included in our list of
Intellectual Property Rights Owner About Me pages at:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/vero-aboutme.html

When we remove a listing at your request, we will provide the seller
with a link to this page. Creating an About Me page is fast and easy. We
provide some general guidance on our site that we hope will assist users
in steering clear of problem areas. See:

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/sell/item_allowed.html

However, you are the experts of your products and policies. Your About
Me page is basically a home page that contains whatever information you
wish to convey to our users. Many rights owners use their About Me pages
to provide contact information for the company and answer frequently
asked questions about infringement of the company's products. In some
cases they are linked to other informational pages, or association or
anti-piracy sites. We have found that a good About Me page can answer
many user questions, which reduces the need for them to email you.


To create your About Me page, please take the following steps:

a. Register an eBay account. The process is fast, easy, and free. Go to
the following Help page to learn how:

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/newtoebay/basic-registration.html

b. Follow the instructions located here:

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/feedback/about_me.html

c. Write to vero@ebay.com.au and let us know that the page has been
created. We will include it in the list of Intellectual Property Rights
Owner About Me pages.

Welcome again to the VeRO Program. We hope this email has provided some
useful guidance and information. Needless to say, if you have any
questions, contact us at vero@ebay.com.au.

We look forward to working with you.

VeRO Program
eBay Inc.
2145 Hamilton Avenue
San Jose, CA 95125
(Voice) (408) 376-6132
(Fax) (408) 516-8811
vero@ebay.com


Can't stop these mongrels but at least we can make life difficult !

[Steve Holmes]

Thanks for posting this info Tony. It pisses me off people are so blatant about this. Its nothing short of theft when they're then selling them.

[TonyG]

I have been trying to make indygirl62's life very difficult by contacting the various teams that I can link photos to directly via websites and Facebook when available and giving them examples of the image for sale and theirs as well as Dorna (Moto GP) but the only one that replied was 888 who said that both themselves and their photographers had taken issue with this person before.
I think it is just too much trouble for them to worry about it.

[Steve Holmes]

Do you know if indygirl62 is operating from Australia?

[TonyG]

Do you know if indygirl62 is operating from Australia?

Yes. Out of Melbourne. They are well known for this and have been ripping people off for the last 18mths from what I have learnt.
They have multiple ebay accounts all over the world eg UK, China, Canada, France etc but always items sent from Melbourne. Any emails received in reply to complaints are reported as always ending in abuse and the grammar is never the best - mate, yous etc more commonly heard from an ethnic community with large numbers in Victoria. The user name may be indygirl62 but the accounts are all linked to the same address but 2 different names, both male, 1 x Dan and the other I forget without looking again.
I need to speak to "Chopper" Reed lol.

[Rod Grimwood]

Sounds like a ethnic version of at the moment NZ resident Mr Dotcom (but don't think indygirl62's bank accounts are quite as big as his yet)

[TonyG]

Just recieved this;
Thank you for pointing this out. We take this very seriously and are looking into it.

Thank you again.

Kind Regards

--
Customer Support
mail@motogp.com

[tripleeightraceengineering]

Hi guys

We realise this forum topic was posted back in March but thought it worth replying to.

Triple Eight Race Engineering have contacted both the seller "indygirl62" and eBay in regards to these unlicensed photos and the illegal sale of all the images relating to V8 Supercars.

@TonyG, when we received your emails earlier in the year, we started the process of reporting the seller to eBay however due to the very long and sometimes frustrating process eBay requires you to undergo, we are still no further along with getting the seller shut down. A report was made through eBay's VeRO program in June but to date we have not yet heard back.

All of our photographers were also made aware of this seller along with V8 Supercars themselves.

We are continually monitoring the sellers page and emailing eBay to request the seller be either shut down or reported properly. We hope that in time, eBay will realise that what they are doing is fraudulent and requires more attention. We don't believe that eBay 'can't' do anything in this situation - as a Team, we have not authorised these images, nor have the photographers which is a clear breach of both eBay rules and copyright rules in Australia.

We would encourage people such as yourselves to continue to report sellers like this through eBay or to advise all motor sport Teams (not just V8 Supercars) when you find items for sale that you believe are not licensed.

Should any of you have any questions about this post or the matter in question, feel free to email us - info@tripleeight.com.au

We try to ensure all emails are responded to accordingly and any actions required in regards to matters such as this are undertaken in the correct manner.

Kind regards,
The Team at Triple Eight Race Engineering / TeamVodafone

PS. TonyG, we'd like to thank you for your persistence and help with bringing the seller to our attention and we hope to get the matter resolved eventually!

[TonyG]

You are welcome. I never did hear back from any of the others I notified other than the initial response from DORNA so once again, Thank You.

I actually thought at the time that V8Supercars may have taken a dim view of it with them being sold by a non V8 Supercar recognised source. I thought everything V8 Supercar related was licenced through them, eg Photos, Diecast Models, Clothing etc.

Go Lowndsey !