eBay seller who thinks it's fine to use anyone photos to advertise their stock

[Rob Pulham]

I just had an interesting phone call with an eBay Seller who goes under the name house-of-o-gauge after noticing that he's advertising a couple of Parkside plate wagon kits using one of my photos, complete with my website address in the corner of it.

He has agreed to take it down but his attitude was that if it's on the web and you can download it, it's not copyright..... and thought I was "being silly" I will monitor it and if he doesn't I will report it to eBay

I also noted that on at least one other item he's used someone else's image (it looks like a shot from a trainsim).

 

[Rob Pulham]

To give the guy a little credit he has removed the image.

 

[simond]

Rob,

Seems to me that there are a couple of issues there. Presumably he isn't selling "your" wagon, so he's misleading his potential customers, and should the product not be "as advertised", and if the customer then sees your web address, he might well give you a bad name.

Hopefully he will desist. If not, I suppose you could invoice him for the professional use of your copyright property. Not sure if you could pursue this through small claims, but if so, I'm sure it would cause him to change his mind about "who's silly now".

Fingers crossed it won't be necessary,
Simon

 

[Rob Pulham]

Rob,

Seems to me that there are a couple of issues there. Presumably he isn't selling "your" wagon, so he's misleading his potential customers, and should the product not be "as advertised", and if the customer then sees your web address, he might well give you a bad name.

Hi Simon,

That was exactly my thought too.

 

[Ian@StEnochs]

Hi Rob,

A club, not railway, I am in used a photo taken from the Internet without permission. The copyright holder saw it and quite aggressively contacted our webmaster with a demand for his fee. We removed it immediately but it still cost us £500 to settle. We did take legal advice and were in the wrong so had to pay.

Your guy has done what we did so you could ask for a royalty fee. Would buy a few choice kits!

Ian.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks Ian,

Sadly I didn't take a screen shot at the time so I no longer have any evidence of the crime so to speak, but should he be foolish enough to do it again I will pursue it differently.

 

[Ian@StEnochs]

Rob,

You know and he knows he did wrong so why not give it a go. Nothing to loose!

Ian.