eBay User Using My Photos/Text ... What to Do?

[BKW]

 

Intellectual Property in the "digital age" truly is a new frontier that courts and legislatures are just beginning to get a handle on. IP rights are also something that many people just don't fully grasp. And because there are so many exceptions (e.g. fair use, public domain, etc.) it makes it even more difficult. Even us lawyers get confused (which in my case isn't that hard to begin with )

 

 

[Kurtdog]

This is copyright infringement, pure and simple. Copyright is statutory. See the Copyright Act. You don't need to register a thing to have a cause of action for infringement under the Act.

 

That understood, as a practical matter, it comes down to how badly you're damaged by the infringement. Think of that in terms of dollars and cents. You're getting some attribution through those links, and maybe that's a good thing. It doesn't mitigate or lessen the fact of infringement, however, and an attorney would send out a cease and desist letter, in a situation like this, almost as a matter of course. If you're not that concerned about damages, at this point, but rather just want to try and stop the infringement, you can save yourself a few bucks by getting out that CD letter, yourself (find the templates on the Internet). A person would require a written waiver or assignment from you to do something like this, though, and that's straight out of the Copyright Act, as well. Hope this helps. Good luck.

[John Maben]

We don't like it when people take (steal) images that belong to us.We're a business that has invested heavily in staff, equipment, and training with regard to digital imaging.To make matters worse, it's usually individuals or smaller businesses that intend to compete directly selling the same product with our pictures. We've taken steps that limit the unauthorized use but even so it happens and we inform them to take the images down. They usually react with an "Ok sorry I didn't realize" but occasionally get belligerent viewing the act as harmless. eBay has a mechanism to report this and will take down the listings if the seller does not volantarily do it.

[Kurtdog]

We don't like it when people take (steal) images that belong to us.We're a business that has invested heavily in staff, equipment, and training with regard to digital imaging.To make matters worse, it's usually individuals or smaller businesses that intend to compete directly selling the same product with our pictures. We've taken steps that limit the unauthorized use but even so it happens and we inform them to take the images down. They usually react with an "Ok sorry I didn't realize" but occasionally get belligerent viewing the act as harmless. eBay has a mechanism to report this and will take down the listings if the seller does not volantarily do it.

ModernCoinMart, just to add, anything you can do to deal with the infringement short of a lawsuit (and, I agree with BKW, BTW, you're going to have to register to maintain said lawsuit; although, if I may digress, understand, said registration can happen after the infringement), is, in the vast majority of infringement cases, the most economical, if not, the wiser route.

[Rigo-migration]

Beside most of the time the BIN prices they are asking are so rediculous that the coins will never sell even with top notch images

 

I think that alone can hurt your sales if you ask me.