eBay and Content Thieves, Part 2
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For those of you who like stories with happy endings, I apologize but this isn’t one of them. So you may not want to read any further.
This is a continuation of my eBay Caters to Content Thieves post from last week, whereby a client of mine, Hibiscus Florals, had their images stolen by an eBay vendor and eBay refused to pull the images.
Within a few hours of the blog post, I did receive a reply from “Skip”, the customer service representative for eBay:
Hello again Adam,
Thank you for writing back to eBay.
I have reviewed each of your examples and do see the other watermarks in the listings but again, since the sources that you provided are not in the form of an ebay listing I cannot take action under our Image Text Theft policy. We cannot remove listings based on the representations of third parties whose credentials we cannot verify.
Again, we have a proper procedure that copyright owners can use to remove such listings and that is our VeRO program. That would be the
proper procedure to follow for copyright infringement of non ebay sources. That is why I suggested you to sign up, I am providing you
with instruction to our procedure in handling with these kinds of matters.Again, thank you for your email and please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any further questions or concerns.
Regards,
Skip
eBay Community Support
In other words, Skip openly acknowledged watermarks from other sites, but because they weren’t eBay auction items, eBay chooses to do nothing about it. I may have missed something, but isn’t that illegal?
Adam Responds
I noticed that the Image Text Theft policy didn’t cover items for non-eBay vendors, and noted as such in my email back to Skip:
Hi Skip,
You obviously aren’t even familiar with your own policies. If you were, you would realize that the Image Text Theft policy that you refer to (assuming it’s the one at http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/vero-image-text-theft.html) does not cover theft of images and/or content from non-eBay users, and therefore is completely irrelevant.
Filling out a VeRO form will ultimately accomplish nothing either in this instance, as the vendor in question is using multiple images from multiple vendors, as you have clearly acknowledged. If Hibiscus fills out the VeRO form in question, the Hibiscus eBay auction items may get removed, but all of them have expired. As a result, all we would be doing is getting items removed that few users would even find in the first place. Not only that, Hibiscus can only act on its own behalf as it pertains to the form, and the other vendors still have to go through the same pointless time-wasting exercise.
There is nothing whatsoever that stops the vendor from creating new auction items using the aforementioned images, or for that matter any other images from other vendors. This is in no way a “proper procedure”, as you put it, and it is merely an exercise in eBay bureaucratic legal futility. I have provided you multiple examples of irrefutable proof that items were stolen not only from us, but from multiple vendors, and you have elected to do nothing because of a form that is completely unnecessary and does nothing to solve the bigger issue. Your argument of “third parties whose credentials we cannot verify” is also irrelevant, as you are clearly dealing with images with watermarks and datestamped URLs which conclusively establish that the vendor is stealing content from multiple sources.
This is not a complicated matter. It’s very simple. Content is being stolen from non-eBay sites. Remove the content.
You have mentioned that you cannot take action. If you cannot take action yourself due to your position within the organization, then please put us in touch with an eBay supervisor or manager who can do something about this issue, who understands the civil and criminal ramifications of intellectual property law, and who will correct the errors that you have made. At this point, I no longer wish to see a reply from you or from anyone else on your level in the company. I expect to see a reply from a person with the authority to fix this problem only.
Thank you,
Adam Senour
Enter “Kline”
I’m guessing “Kline” is Skip’s superior, but it may well be a different customer service rep (I’m not even sure if “Kline” is a he name or a she name.) At any rate, “Kline” clearly didn’t want to deal with the problem.
Hello Adam,
Thank you for writing back to us regarding your image and text concerns.
We understand that this can be a frustrating situation, and we would like to be of assistance. However, since the material in question is
being used on a another site rather than on eBay, we are unable to take action in this matter.I appreciate your patience and understanding in this matter.
Regards,
Kline
eBay Community Support
I’m guessing that “Kline” either didn’t read the previous email exchange between Skip and I, or is just another clueless eBay idiot who doesn’t understand that little things such as facts tend to illuminate situations involving copyright. At any rate, I got yet another generic email from someone with an unusual name that doesn’t get it.
The auction items have expired since then, and I have also watermarked the Hibiscus Florals thumbnails (something I didn’t want to do, but in this case it was necessary). As a result of this, and as a result of eBay’s bizarre insistence on citing an inapplicable policy, Hibiscus has advised me to let it go. I don’t blame them in the slightest, and neither should anyone else. This is one of those arguments that I might win, but probably wouldn’t be worth it.
The reason that I posted Part 2 was to further illustrate just how lost in their own corporate bullshit eBay has become. They’re a company no one should deal with on any level, since they truly don’t care about anything other than making money, even if it means they’ll attempt to circumvent legal ramifications.
November 7th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Yo, you’re behind the curve on this one. EBay also has a policy saying that members are allowed to murder their families so long as it happens in the kitchen, but this action is prohibited in the living room. It’s there in the terms of service - law be damned.
November 7th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Ebay is trying to use its own twisted logic here. They are taking the “if we fail to moderate all, we don’t have to moderate any” approach.
This is easy to fix. Simply post an eBay ad with some Amazon.com or Google.com intellectual property. I’ll bet eBay will be very quick to remove the offending image - thus proving that their so-called ‘point’ here is quite invalid.
November 7th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
John, that’s a very good way of putting it. It’s almost like eBay is trying to create their own neo-fascist jurisdiction. How would that work, though? Are there borders? Boundaries? Who enforces the law?
That’s an interesting idea, Lawrence. I might have to explore it further.
* whistles innocently *
November 7th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
You’ve just encountered something that people on a gardening forum have had to deal with for a long time now. What gets me is the number of people who sell plants, florals or gardening related products on ebay who are photo leaches.
That’s why I put a big and ugly name stamp on all of mine. If you want to use the pic that bad then you’ll have to give me free publicity or photoshop my name out of it.
November 7th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Oh yeah, MrBrownThumb. But on those forums, the owners will usually remove the offending content rather than cite a policy that doesn’t apply. That’s the difference here.
November 8th, 2007 at 1:39 am
It’s almost painful to mar my photos with a big, ugly watermark and copyright mark … but if the CIA is so keen on waterboarding people, they should go after photo thieves. That’s a bit harsh, but I’ll go to any length to stop somebody using one of my images in a way I’m not comfortable with.
Intellectual property law is obviously going to take precedence over some internal policy … it’s a lot funnier the way John said it, though.
In the US, you would be able to take them to small claims court for about a $20 fee. Most states don’t allow lawyers in cases
November 8th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
I don’t know how the first post escaped my attention but I saw this one and wanted to see what I can do.
Ebay’s VeRO policy is actually pretty well lauded in the copyright world. Most credit it with saving Ebay from being sued into oblivion back before other legal protections were offered hosts and, in some ways, auction sites.
However, I’ve been hearing more and more complaints about VeRO in the past six months so your frustration with Ebay’s policies are not altogether unique, just recent.
Regardless, it is a frustrating situation and, if you want, I’ll gladly have a look at it. If Ebay is right and there are other sites involved I may be able to bring about another form of resolution or at least offer different plans of attack.
Just send me an email if you’re interested, I’ll gladly do what I can.
November 8th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Hi Jonathan,
I’ll take you up on that! Thanks!
November 8th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Adam,
Sorry for the confusion I wasn’t very clear. On a gardening forum I participate on members often have their pics stolen by eBay sellers. Since so many people who post on these forums also buy or sell on eBay these infractions come to the surface pretty easily. Often times though they’re given the runaround and nothing is done about pics taken from their personal galleries or the gallery of the gardening forum.
It seems the more exposure someone has on the forum or on-line the greater the chances are that their pics will end up representing someone’s bid items on eBay.
November 9th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Hay Adam, heres a lame idea -
- Put up a listing in the Ebay Stores section for an exhorborant amount of money, so that no one would ever buy the item(s) in question.
- Put up a bunch of pictures on that listing that are the same as the stolen ones, with copyright marks on them.
- Then, complain to Ebay that the pictures are stolen. If they follow their own rules, they will go after the seller for infringement.
- Then, the next time the seller puts up a new auction, change your pictures on that listing, and complain again.
… i suspect tho, that its hardly worth the time or effort that would take, especially since Hibuscus has said they dont want to persue it.
November 15th, 2007 at 10:03 am
[...] help comes from unexpected sources. When a client of mine and I were having issues with eBay last week, I received help from just such a source: Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism [...]
November 17th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Hi there adam
I agree with your conclusion at the end, companies like Ebay seem to think they can do whatever they like, as they have become so big no one dare even take them up on issues.
They dont care about people on an individual basis, and that goes for their regular power selling customers too.
I for one have been ripped on via ebay have complained and got no where, they wont be getting any more of my money, nor will i be advertising any of their product at any time on any of my sites !
So it will come back to haunt them in time i hope !
Woc
December 5th, 2007 at 12:27 am
I WAS THROWN OF EBAY BECAUSE MY SON SUPPOSEDLY USED A BRAND NAME TO DESCRIBE HIS ITEM AS SIMULAR TO OR DESIGNED LIKE A THEY THREW HIM OFF AND THEN SAID I WAS AFILLIATED WITH HIM ALTHOUGH OUR ACCOUNTS ARE DIFFERENT NAMES AND EMAIL ADDRESSES IVE BEEN OFF SINCE SAT AND THEY DO NOT RESPOND THEY THINK THEY ARE THE INTERNET GOD !