There is an ebay seller that goes by gmac0312 that has used several of my copyrighted pictures taken from a website to sell his/her brugmansias on Ebay. Thought I'd give everyone a heads up in case some of yours were being used without your permission as well.
Trish
Unauthorized use of Brugmansia Pictures
Thanks MzM, I'll take a look.
S.
thanks for the info Trish
Thanks for letting us know Trish.
Trish are they ones that were posted on DG? If so why not tell Dave? Or did you take care of the problem???
I went and looked at each one and it had no name at all except for one of them and it has his name at the top middle.????Which one was it?
Someone did this to me once and I confronted him by sending him an e-mail via eBay using the "ask the seller a question" feature which is in every listing. I would love to have seen the look on his face when he opened my e-mail expecting a question from a prospective buyer and received the following: "I do not appreciate you stealing my pictures and tweaking them in the hopes that I won't recognize my own picture. I don't know whether you're too lazy to take your own pictures, or the best you can do is take rotten pictures. In any case, STOP STEALING MINE. Learn to take your own pictures because I do not consider it a compliment that you're using mine to sell your merchandise. The next time you use another picture of mine, I will report you to eBay so they can revoke your selling priviledges." My e-mail went unanswered, but, he never used another picture of mine again.
I haven't gone through all the listings yet but this seller:
dannyj11-88
is using another image stolen from here on DG. I've reported both instances where he has used it without permission to eBay security. They generally respond within 24-48 hours.
You can go to this link on eBay to report image theft:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/vero-image-text-theft.html
If it takes you to a generic "report a problem" page just enter "image theft" in the Search box and then scroll down a bit to "Report"
Some Swedes on the Swedish Tradera were using photos of my hoyas...friends there would let me know and send me the links. I sent them similar messages to CissyB and they stopped. I also sent an email to a customer of mine who was using my pictures to sell HIS hoyas on Tradera. He apologized (what else could he do?). It is sad they have to rob others.
Carol
Makes you wonder which kind they are really selling if they do not even have a picture of their own wares.
This (( gmac )) seller on ebay is one in the same that said he had a Apricot Queen and put it on ebay for sale...Started a whole mess. It seems to me he or she is selling items and knoming a thing about them..thats why he uses others pictures. No way to know what is really being sold.
Whew! glad I don't buy brugs on ebay, You just don't know who to trust,
Yeah, me too Kathy. Too many horror stories I've heard. What ever happened to good honest people anymore?
Hugs
Julie
Unfortunately, the seller is listing Pink Floyd for sale and has my picture of I. pink as the brug... and there is a buyer for it. I've e-mailed the person as well as Ebay... but not action as yet. :(
have you heard anything from him?
What is that little camera icon in the lower right hand corner of the pic? Is that gmac's copyright?
That's all I saw on all of them Brinda? I'd like to know this too, I've never seen it before. Hope someone can come along and answer for us :-)
Hugs
Julie
You can see two auctions where one of my "Ms Scarlet" images is being used without permissionby the seller dannyj11-88
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=20534&item=4386491071&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=20534&item=4386723837&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
You can see that the seller just chopped off my watermark and added the Icon from whatever image software he uses. I don't know which other auctions MzM's images are on, but I would guess that something similar was done.
Here's the link to my image in the PlantFiles:
http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/68685/
I've had good luck before with eBay, but the first response this time around was less than satisfactory and I continue to pursue the issue.
Just heard back from eBay.....one auction was removed and my image has been removed from the second auction.:-)
And to let you know that they are responsive, their first contact with me was a mere 2 hours after I notified them. After providing some additional proof that "Happenstance" and my ID on ebay were one and the same person they took action.
Im sure sorry they took both your photos. Hopefully everything will be cleared up. The watermark is an ebay watermark.
Well I'm a bit disappointed that our photos are not protected very well! Does ebay have any kind of notice like DG has about entering photos that are not your own? This stinks!
Might a campaign against ebay be warranted? If they had stricter rules about photos, maybe this wouldn't happen?
I just thought of a good way to help prevent non-subscribers to access our pics - DON'T post a pic with the first comment when you start a new thread. Since they can only access the first one, post it on the 2nd. What do ya think?
Anyone has access to the plantfiles and can download pics from there. Any time I do a search for a particular plant using google, a plantfiles entry usually comes up. I was easily able to download one of the photos from such a search. Some sites put scripts in their pages to prevent images from being downloaded. I would if Dave would be willing to put such code into place to prevent this sort of image theft.
You can not stop people from taking your images for their own use. There are software packages that will prevent most people from being able to copy them, but as the old saying goes "where there is a will, there is a way."
eBay leaves it up to the individual image owner to police the entire eBay system looking to see which crook is working during a given time frame. They have no way of knowing which images are being used without permission unless you the owner notify them (which means you have to be aware that the problem exists). It takes a lot of time to look at the bazillion listings on ebay that might contain an image you own. :-)
Images from my vintage dinnerware site have been showing up in eBay listings for years......but it gets really tiresome to continually check the listings for image theft. In the past when I have notified eBay, they have never failed to take the seller to task for the infraction.
Yes - as a non-subscriber you can access 10 a day (I think). I wish all photos in the PDB had better protection. I know some sites have it where when you do the right click on a photo, you don't get a "save-as" option. BUT there are snag programs that allow you to snag pics regardless of that protection.
Why would you want to buy a plant from someone when they can't even post a pic of their OWN success? Not me!
I agree. I wouldn't want to buy a plant from them either, but how are you to know if the pic they're posting is really theirs or not? I've been buying a few brugs on ebay so this thread has really been helpful so I know who to definitely avoid.
You don't know unless you recognize the photo.
I have seen the situation get so bad that the owner and poster of the photo has to totally COVER the photo with their name or other identifying data. On tradera they took on of those photos and managed to find, in a whole umbel, 3 flowers to crop out. They were caught anyway!
Oh no! I bought 5 brug cuttings from this GMAC person last month based on the photos. I will admit that they were nice to deal with and I did receive big healthy woody cuttings, nicely rooted. But I am disappointed that they would think to use somebody elses photos.
just thought I would add my 2 cents
carole in atlanta
Carole,
I just hope that you really got what the photos depicted. If he was using stolen photos, I cant help but wonder what brugs he actually had.
Good luck to you and their authenticity.
Jen
Maybe these people don't have digital cameras. Doesn't make it right though.
I think that MOST people, when asked, would lend the use of their photo, especially if credit is given. I haven't a problem with that....but if they are "stolen"... BAD BAD BAD!
Karrie... yes they do have a digital camera... as they switched out my U Conn Tres for a very poor quality one of their own...
I finally heard back from Ebay.. faxed off the form they requested.. now just waiting and see what action is taken..
And yes, I probably would have loaned them one of my own personal pictures, had they asked.
nothing like buying from bad stock!
Some of these people are retail sellers, who have bought from a wholesaler, therefore they don't have pictures.
Judy
well if you in business like that, it should be a "must" to get a pic from the wholesaler.
If they don't see it blooming they can't be sure what they bought, now can they.
true enough - but I'd hope that someone would have the brains to see the blooms first.
Depends upon how honest they are, they may just want the money and not care if 2 years down the road the person finally gets a bloom and discovers they have a different Brug. How many people would keep the information on who they bought it from that long and if they did contact them they would probably just say they were sorry. Go to a flea market sometime and go to booths that have plants or something you are very knowledgable about, ask dump questions and see what kind of answers you get.... it's fun and you will be shocked at the number of sellers who will tell you what they think you want to hear just to make a buck.
There was a cute little Chihuahua puppy at a flea market and I asked the lady how old it was, 8 weeks and how much should it weigh grown, she said 4 pounds. Well considering it was a good 2 pounds at that time, chances are it would weight considerably more than any 4 lbs when grown, but most people would not have known that what she was saying was UNTRUE. The puppy was half the size of my full grown Weizer who weighed 4 1/2 lbs. When Weiz was that age I carried him around in my pocket.