peter5747 in eBay Copyright Theft
peter5747 of Hayling Island, Hampshire, United Kingdom, stole our 1949 Swiss Vreneli Gold 20 Francs Reverse Photograph to sell his own coin on eBay, without our permission, and failed to mention the coin in the photograph was not the one he owned, if any. Totally dishonest.
He altered the date numerals very clumsily, perhaps in a pathetic attempt to disguise the source of the image.
Image theft is endemic on eBay, and most sellers appear not to care whether their buyers are deceived.

High eBay Feedback is No Guarantee of Integrity or Honesty
When we wrote this page, this eBay member's feedback was 34, with 100% positive, according to eBay.

eBay Copyright Thieves
Many eBay vendors use our coin photographs to sell inferior quality coins on eBay. These eBay members are dishonest and should be avoided.
We believe eBay profits from IP rights infringements (copyright theft), and does so knowingly, only removing infringing items reluctantly, if at all.

Sample Listing

20 Francs gold Swiss coin
1922 - 20 Francs - Vrenelli-Helvetica (sic). In original bank gift red box. Inscription inside the box in Gold lettering over white material: MIGROS BANK BANQUE MIGROS BANCA MIGROS Coin in mint condition.

What's Wrong?
We invest a great deal of time, effort, and cost into creating some of the best photographic coin and gold bar images on the internet. We strongly object when lazy and dishonest people decide to use them without a by your leave or thanks, doing so in competition with us.
Copyright theft is dishonest. We recommend you avoid doing business with dishonest dealers.
It is always possible, even likely, that sellers who steal photographs do not own a similar bar, and have the intention to totally defraud potential buyers.
The vendor is not only cheating us by stealing our copyright images, he is fraudulently or ignorantly misleading and deceiving all potential buyers. Gaining pecuniary advantage by deception is the definition of fraud.

Digimarc Watermark Icon If there was any doubt about the creator or rights owner, it could be resolved beyond reasonable doubt by peter5747's purported 1922 coin bearing our Digimarc watermark. A Digimarc icon is clearly visible at the bottom left of his photograph in our screenshot of his listing.

Price
The seller was asking a starting price of £150. for this item.
Even without after eBay's greedy 10% selling fees, and possible PayPal charges, the seller would almost certainly have been much better off selling the coins to us, instead of stealing our photographs.

What Me Guv? We received the following e-mail from Peter 4757, who we assume is the same as peter5747:

Dear Sir,
I do not understand how I breached a copyright as I did not use any other e-bay (sic) or product.
The words are exactly what was (sic) on the box.
Please advice (sic) as I have posted the item to the buyer.
This is most ubnusal (sic) and certaily (sic) not my intention.
What is on the box of the coin is not a copyright and I find this rather disturbing that once the payment has been made the problem arises.
Reagrds (sic)
Peter 4757
rocchiccioli.peter@talktalk.net

Request to Contact Rights Owner
Occasionally we get contacted by eBay to say a particular copyright thief still wants to know what they have done wrong. This is usually after they have e-mailed the address we give eBay for this purpose, and received an auto-response which we make as idiot-proof as possible, although sometimes they have not bothered to take this first step.
On this occasion peter4757 seems to have told eBay he had been trying to e-mail us and not had a reply:

eBay United Kingdom Customer Support
ukcswebhelp@ebay.com
Seller 'peter5747' request to contact Rights Owner (KMM37128773V28852L0KM)
Hello,
We're writing to let you know that [rocchiccioli.peter@talktalk.net], an eBay member, has been trying to reach you by email to request clarification about their eBay listing, #[110592098229], which was removed at your request. They haven't yet received a reply from you.
We strongly encourage VeRO members to communicate with the sellers of listings they've asked to be removed from eBay. In most cases sellers simply want clarification on why their items breached your rights.
Explaining your position helps our members to avoid listing items that breach your rights in the future.
Obviously you can choose to ignore rude or threatening emails, but we hope you'll respond to polite or neutral enquiries.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation. If we can be of assistance in this matter please let us know.
Kind regards,
Charlie Johnson
eBay VeRO Team

Points Arising

• peter5747 has received an auto-response e-mail from us. It he cannot find this in his inbox, he should look in his junk or deleted folder.
• eBay VeRO Team will also have had an identical auto-responder because they sent this e-mail to our e-mail address set up and reserved for the purpose.
• The e-mail spells out why we have reported them (normally copyright image theft), and directs them to pages of our web sites where they can read much more.
• Most if not all copyright thieves know they have used a photo which does not belong to them.
• Although eBay does state, twice to our knowledge, in its listings rules and guidelines that sellers should take their own photos, and not use others, we believe eBay do not stress this enough, and could, if they so chose, take more positive steps to inform and remind their members not to abuse copyright.
• In every eBay NOCI report including this one, we stipulate the *Reason Code*:
  4.2 Listing(s) uses unauthorized copy of copyrighted image. (Although we add also include 4.1 and 4.3 as a catch-all)
• eBay VeRO appear to omit to communicate this clearly, if at all, to their infringers.
  Indeed whenever we have seen the notice eBay has sent to its infringing member, it appears that we are complaining about the sale of copyright items, which we believe positively creates and amplifies any confusion in their members' minds rather than explains it.
• eBay should, in our very firm opinion, pass on the correct reason code to their infringing member, but fail to do so.
• eBay could and should remind their infringing members of eBay's listing policies particularly where these advise not to use images found elsewhere.
• If the eBay member in question still fails to understand what he has done wrong, eBay could always refer him to this page. We now include in our NOCI reports the URL of our Name & Shame page for each eBay member.

eBay Guilty of Negligence or Complicity
We will be reporting this example of copyright abuse using our standard Statutory Declaration via the eBay VeRO programme, and wait to see if they chose to action or ignore our report. We look forward to taking legal action against eBay for their negligence and / or complicity if they fail to take down the offending material promptly.

Copyright Notice Please see our "Copyright" page for further information.

Copyright Infringements Remedies Our suggested draft remedies for copyright abusers dependent on category - competitors, bloggers, pseudo-expert & advice sites acting as eBay & Google portals, eBay & other auction site sellers.

Other Copyright Abuse

Other Copyright Abuse

Buying Gold Coins & Bars on eBay

Selling Gold Coins & Bars on eBay

Copyright Thieves on eBay We already have a page naming and shaming dealers using our images without permission. It's time we did the same for eBay, although if we include them all, this could be a very long page.

Alphabetical Listing of Other Copyright Theft Sites

Other Scams

Other Web Sites All comments about copyright also cover content of all our other websites including, but not limited to:-

• Chards
  www.chards.co.uk
• Investment Gold Bars & Coins (This Site)
  taxfreegold.co.uk
• General Coins & Jewellery:
  www.24carat.co.uk
• Gold Sovereigns:
  goldsovereigns.co.uk
• 18 Carat Gold Jewellery:
  www.18carat.co.uk
• 9 Carat Gold Jewellery:
  www.9carat.co.uk