Another seller stealing my auction titles! 31 March 2013 at 7:06PM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Ebay, Auctions, Car Boot & Jumble Sales 7 replies 1K views

campdave

Another seller has copied several of my designs, which aren't copyrighted so I can't do anything about it.

However, they have just copied and pasted my auction titles as their own - can I do anything about it?

campdave

Contacted the seller, who has amended the titles already. They are just moving into my area of sales, so good to let them know they cant just steal my titles!

RFW

campdave wrote: »

Another seller has copied several of my designs, which aren't copyrighted so I can't do anything about it.

If you haven't used it from somewhere else you should be able to stop them copying anything from your listing. There isn't an official way of making anything copyright. If you are the originator, you have the copyright.

You can report them to Ebay for copying parts of your listings.

butler_helen

Is there not a "sell similar" option on the app? I've "stolen" titles from other sellers with this and not known it was wrong before now - I only thought I was photos which were not to be used.

Thanks OP - I won't do it again!!

campdave

RFW wrote: »

If you haven't used it from somewhere else you should be able to stop them copying anything from your listing. There isn't an official way of making anything copyright. If you are the originator, you have the copyright.

You can report them to Ebay for copying parts of your listings.

The items I sell involve slogans, which can't be copyrighted - lots of sellers in my area have their design for a slogan thats in the public domain. This seller has taken a lot of inspiration from my designs, but they haven't infringed my copyright.

Though I am involved in an issue with another seller who has ripped my design (very poorly) from the photograph on my item. I'm waiting for a vero response on that one.

campdave

butler_helen wrote: »

Is there not a "sell similar" option on the app? I've "stolen" titles from other sellers with this and not known it was wrong before now - I only thought I was photos which were not to be used.

Thanks OP - I won't do it again!!

Photos and text - if you wouldn't lift the text from an auction, why would it be acceptable to lift the title?

There is always going to be some crossover, but this seller had copied and pasted the exact words without even changing the order (or amending the typo!)

ballisticbrian

I had an Indian seller copy some text of mine which included my own original research. It then spread amoung all the Indian sellers (either multiple accounts of the same seller or different sellers -who knows) eBay after a bit of proding removed every listing with it in.
I think what maybe happened, is that in China and India, there is no copyright, so it only took one person to copy me, and then they all copied each other.

soolin

Actually as has been suggested eBay themselves allow a seller to sell with the exact same title, go and try a test listing using the 'sell similar' eBay function.