Quote:
Would I be correct in thinking that this problem is pretty common with eBay sellers?
Unfortunately, yes. I have seen many sellers (sometimes experienced sellers) use material from the Museum website. Most of the time I send a short request like:
Greetings, Do you have a picture of the actual calculator
instead of the photo you stole from the Museum of HP website?"
I then attach a link to the IMAGE AND PICTURE THEFT Policy.
Just as Joerg Woerner has said in his disclaimer, many sellers respond and remove the copied material, BUT some others respond with some pretty nasty verbal abuse. Even If I can't report the copyrighted material stolen from MoHP website, I can report obscene emails.
The worst of these emails is from the TAS administrators themselves!! As frequent a victim of image/text theft, I will tell you, the department that handles this kind of abuse is full of incompetent people. Their response is a three-day process which always follows this pattern:
REP: I'm sorry we couldn't find any evidence of stolen images or text in the listing you reported.
ME: How about my name typed on the screen in the picture? And the links to my store in the auction text?
REP: (one day later) The auction text seems generic or is from the manufacturer.
ME: Google the first 20 words of [this] paragraph! There are no other paragraphs like this on the internet.
REP: (two days later) Oh, we'll take some action we can't tell you about.
This is completely obscene for a company that charges as much as they do for their services.
Unfortunately if your copyrighted material is not in another (active or still archived) listing, it is MUCH more difficult to spur the VeRO team into action. The process involves a Faxed NOCI form. NOTE: there are provisions on this form for Dave to delegate reporting authority to others if he desires.
In contrast, I recently found some of my items on craigslist, and with one short email titled NOTIFICATION OF CLAIMS OF INFRINGEMENT the stolen ad was removed within a few hours without fuss. I didn't have to write and explain what a 'link' or 'jpg' was.
