Can you pinch other ebayers photos?

jet77

If you buy something on ebay and then resell it on ebay can you copy and paste the other sellers photos for your ad? Is there a copyright or something?

I haven't got a digital camera and am taking photos on my phone and e-mailing them to myself at the moment and the quality's terrible which is knocking my prices down.

My other question is: when you are bidding for an item and you enter you bid amount, can you put the maximum amount that you are prepared to pay for that item in as oposed to just the next pound up? If so does it automatically bid on your behalf?

Sorry if these questions have already been asked a thousand times before but please advise me.

Thanks,

Luv Jxxx

CarolnMalky

Hi,
You shouldnt use someone elses photo unless you have asked them and have their permission, otherwise you are breaking ebay rules.
Hope this helps
Carol

sarahlouise210

Some serious sellers have their pictures marked that they are copyrighted. Normal sellers still do not like you using their photos ..and its against the ruke..and I have seen some threads on here where people are angry about it...(usually when they are selling something similar and someone nicks their photo) I have used someones photo once ...but I emailed them and asked them if it was ok (I had bought the item but it was too small) ..they agreed that I could use their photo..if they had said no then I would not have used it. Re your second question ...yes you can put in your maximum bid and Ebay will only increase your bid as necessary.

alanalea

I think it'd be best if you emailed and asked if you can use the other members photos- If someone had taken my photo's without asking for permission i'd be pretty narked off. I'm not too sure if theres any rules on eBay about it- Someone will be along shortly who can give you details.

In relation to your second question: Yes you can put in your top bid amount and eBay will bid for you. So if your top bid is 10.00m, present bid is 7.50 someone bid 8.00 then eBay will automatically bid 8.50 for you. Am I making it clear or just confusing you even more? lol

jet77

Thank you all for your answers. I would click your thanks buttons if I could but pc won't let me for some strange and unknown reason (won't let me do smilies either).

I will always ask sellers if I can use their photos. Sorry if this is obvious but when I tried to contact a seller before after the auction had ended I wasn't able to. Are you able to contact them if you are the winning bidder and its a couple of weeks after the aictions ended?

Luv Jxxx

frivolous_fay

Ebay may be restricting your emails in case you're planning on doing an off-ebay sale.

Do you have the seller's email address on your invoice, or from any messages in your email?

FloFlo

If you are selling on the item for a profit they are unlikely to let you use their photo but if you are selling because it was unsuitable and want to recoup your money then explain this and they may let you. Your best bet is to buy a cheap digital camera.

Bossyboots

Regardless of eBay's own rules, the copyright of photographs belongs with the photographer so you cannot use them without express permission.

Contains_Mild_Peril

Bossyboots wrote:

Regardless of eBay's own rules, the copyright of photographs belongs with the photographer so you cannot use them without express permission.

True, and it's also against eBay rules to use them without permission.
You could try asking permission to use the original seller's photos, but it's up to them whether they give permission. If they're still trying to sell similar items then it would be quite understandable if they refuse, but if it's a one-off item they might not mind. I recently sold a couple of outfits that could be used for fancy dress parties, pantomimes etc, and I said in my listings that the buyers would be welcome to "borrow" my photos if they wished to resell the costume after their party or panto or whatever.
If you have to use a phone camera for eBay photos, you may be able to improve them by, for instance, experimenting with lighting (e.g. does window light work better than artifical light?) and perhaps adjusting the camera-subject distance for optimal results. You can probably then further improve the image with photo editing software on your computer. If you have a printer then you probably got some software along with it which will perform basic image editing tasks such as cropping and adjusting brightness.

frivolous_fay

I wouldn't mind letting people use my pics if they were reselling... as long as they asked nicely.

teeb

Bossyboots wrote:

Regardless of eBay's own rules, the copyright of photographs belongs with the photographer so you cannot use them without express permission.

However, if the item you are selling has a Wikipedia entry and photo, it should be OK to use the picture there. Many mobile phones on wikipedia have pictures, for example. When people put their photos up on Wikipedia they are released under a GFDL license [correct me if I'm wrong] that means it's OK to use them as long as the original creator is credited.

Wikipedia content is public domain so you could use that in your auction.