MicrostockGroup

how were they delivering?  cd? digital download or link?  if the latter you can report them to ebay for that reason alone

can you give the user name of sellers we might want to check?

steve

Actually, he made 71 DVD's with stock photos. Mostly all cost $5.

http://shop.ebay.com/digienlight/m.html?_trkparms=65%253A12%257C66%253A2%257C39%253A1%257C72%253A3627&_ipg=&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14.l1513&_pgn=1

So, he is buying images and reselling them for $5. Every DVD has 1000-1500 images, which means in the best case one image on DVD costs 0,5 cents. Yes, it's $0,005.
Now I ask myself, does someone shares his DVD's on pirated stock sites?? There are thieves who steal from us. I bet there are thieves that steal from thieves and share for free...

Yeah, maybe you are right.

ebay is not removing the accounts - they only remove the listings.

Since the sellers in my case are in China and Japan I cannot pursue any legal action.

Here is one of them:
http://myworld.ebay.com/24outlet/

http://cgi.ebay.com/DVD-900-STOCK-PHOTOS-FLORAL-FLOWERS-CLOSEUPS-images-v2-/180531544854?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a0884c316

Copyright Owner: Hamed Elgendy
Source 123RF


I'm trying to contact the copyright owner. It's very easy with Tineye to get the copyright holder of the main image of each listing.
I'm just not going through all the listings...

Here is his port on 123RF

http://www.123rf.com/profile_max2002eg

If you're a member there you could try and send a site mail. He doesn't look very active though.

I did find a hit on Dreamstime for him, but it looks like the account is unavailable.

You can not say that unless you find those images online by someone else.  I checked the first two at Tineye, the first had 0 results, the second 4 - all were websites, not stock agencies. So he can be the legal copyright owner.

It's unlikely the source is Getty, so it's probably 123RF then. Oh, the subs...

Who is registered from Egypt at 123RF but selling from Malaysia on ebay? That's a far stretch.

I'm getting tired of giving these people the benefit of the doubt. Not once have I falsely accused somebody for ripping me off.

Also I don't think there is a big market on ebay to legally sell POD images. There are far more specific places to do so.

I know what you mean. I'm not affected anymore the way I used to in the beginning.

Every now and then I check Google Images, ebay, Zazzle and make sure my best seller is off the radar.
I always find something. So far I'm doing pretty good.

Sometime I get paid, sometimes the images are taken down and a few times they just try to get away with it - but there are always ways to cut them off since no web host will allow copyright infringement. At least I haven't dealt with web hosting companies in countries that don't really have any copyright laws.

All I'm trying to do is getting rid of the full high resolution images on Google Images. I don't care about the rest anymore.
Also, if someone sells products without the appropriate license, that's a no-no in my book. I can't stop them all - but I will stop the worst of them 

The sad thing is that they have been doing it for awhile because they are power sellers with 100% positive feedback. That's what I always look for when buying off e-bay, those power sellers...now it makes me wonder.

Positive feedback is because they deliver the goods as expected. People who buy them may not know it is illegal, although certainly many do - but they won't give a negative feedback because of that.

Our e-Bay is a repository of smuggled electronics. The government apparently doesn't do anything about that.