tonylee1000 in eBay Copyright Theft
tonylee1000 of Maidenhead, Berkshire, United Kingdom, stole our Mint Condition 1982 Half Sovereign
reverse photograph to sell his own coin on eBay, without our permission, and failed to mention the coin in the photograph was not the coin he owned, if any. Totally dishonest.
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 47, 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
1982 half sovereign
Very rare Queen Elizabeth II 22CT half sovereign
1982 excellent condition.
1982 Gold Proof Half Sovereign - Perfect Gift for Anniversaries or Birthdays (sic)
Limited edition struck with specially prepared highly polished Dies (sic) to produce a superb proof finish (sic)
3.98 Grams / 22ct Gold / 0.1177 Oz Gold (sic)
The Proof Half Sovereign is carefully created and struck by the Royal mint and the outcome is a very beautiful coin.
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 coin, 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.
He also tolf the customary eBay lie that these coins are very rare, there were in fact 19,090 issued, which makes them quite common.
Price
The seller was asking a starting price of £0.99 for his coin.
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.
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.
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 Web Sites All comments about copyright also cover content of all our other websites including, but not limited to:-
Our Images
Our 1982 Proof Half Sovereign Reverse Photograph