Using your photos

poppy10_2

thriftymanc wrote: »

My parents sold an item on eBay that ended up going for quite a lot of money and they were really pleased. However the buyer then emailed my parents to say that they'd just seen another seller was selling supposedly the exact same item with the exact same photos and they were no longer going to pay as they didn't know who the item really belonged to. Even though the second seller had listed their auction just after my parents' auction had ended, and my parents sent extra photos of the item to prove it was theirs, the buyer said they didn't want to take the risk with that amount of money involved and pulled out of the sale. My parents asked eBay to remove the other auction but eBay pretty much said the same as the buyer - that they couldn't tell who the photos originally belonged to! It seemed eBay couldn't care less. So they had to wait until the other seller's auction was over and done with, relisted the item and it ended up going for less than half of what it originally went for. Wouldn't you be at least a little bit annoyed if that happened to you?!

Bit of an unlikely story. Surely it's obvious that the listing that came first was the original one, and the second one had borrowed the photos. Sounds like the bidder just realized he had overbid and got cold feet. Happens all the time on eBay. Once he has won the auction he has entered into a legally binding contract, your parents should have issued him with a non-paying buyer strike

soolin

poppy10 wrote: »

Bit of an unlikely story. Surely it's obvious that the listing that came first was the original one, and the second one had borrowed the photos. Sounds like the bidder just realized he had overbid and got cold feet. Happens all the time on eBay. Once he has won the auction he has entered into a legally binding contract, your parents should have issued him with a non-paying buyer strike

I don't think it is obvious which auction came first. I used to sell (not so much anymore) collectable items that were brand new and which I could actually purchase in quantities. One photo therefore meant a few months of ebaying, and in the instance I mentioned earlier some of the photos were being used by people who had listed their auctions before I listed mine as I spread mine out across several months.

I always report and I don't recall a time where the offending copy was not removed by ebay. Each of those removals would put a non performing strike on the sellers account.

esuhl

porto_bello wrote: »

The law is pretty clear - theft is theft... It covers everything from paypal funds to picture files... and everything else in-between.

If the law is that clear, I'd be interested to know which country's laws you've been reading because they certainly aren't the UK's. Intellectual property infringements are quite different to "theft".

porto_bello wrote: »

There are no grey areas for debate – I really can’t see any mileage in arguing otherwise.

Then it's very strange that you've completely mis-understood the law, yet are quite certain that IP infringement is theft.

glitter123

poppy10 wrote: »

God, get a life. Why does it matter to you if someone uses your phoyos after your listing has ended?

But the buyer won't be getting the item in the photograph.

I once had someone use a photograph of a dress I was selling (at the same time my listing was active), however my dress was a totally different colour and she just mentioned in the listing "i've used a dress of another colour because my camera is broken"