I don't think my rose photos are anything special but when I saw 100,000 hits in one month, my grandgirl told me I could make it a private album and I did.

pacnwgrdngirl--don't be so nice to someone who steals your photos. Demand that it be taken down instantly and inform them that you are reporting them to E-Bay. Tell them also that you will investigate legal remedies if that photo doesn't disappear pronto.

Paul Barden, the rosarian, has often complained on this forum that e-bay sellers steal his beautiful photos. He absolutely hounds the culprits until they comply.

You have my sympathy--it must have been a shock. Seriously--harass them til they shape up and decide it would be wiser to avoid stealing your photos.

Kate

Adrienne:

You know you seem like a very sweet woman. So you probably cannot help your urge to be kind to someone like that Ebay seller who so obviously has an insufficient regard for others. Personally I would be furious. Are you willing to share the name/id of that seller? I ask only because from time to time I do buy plants on Ebay and would like to avoid giving that person my money. I don't think much of others who consider theft to be an acceptable practice to perpetuate their livelihood.

Kate

Just want to say I'm an ebay seller and no matter how beautiful somebody else's picture is I wouldn't WANT to use anything but my own picture! I am proud of my ebay business. I think most people on ebay are ethical and work to do a good job.
Linda

Trospero (Paul Barden) had this constant problem with his photos. Now, his photos are fantastic (check his website!) and he is a pro in photography so he was very upset (and he was right) because of this constant stealing. I do not know if he was able to get any result either with eBay or the vendor who repeatedly 'borrowed' his pictures.

Does anyone know what was the outcome?

Yep, that happens quite often. Maybe someone who knows will stop by this post.
Adrienne, sorry for that mean person who stole your photos.

Carla

...........especially when they are doing it for a profit for themselves, and we have all put our pictures up here in great faith to share with fellow Rosarians which is very rewarding to do that. I would even be more furious if my photography was professional and it was my own business. I think in that case, in particular, there should be ways to get E.Bay to pull them. I have not had a lot of experience with E.Bay myself, but I would imagine this sort of thing should be included in a policy of theirs. For Heaven's sake use your own camera or get friends/family to take a picture for you. DO NOT USE OURS.
Pauline - VI

I'm an EBAY rose seller also, and I cannot believe what some people out there will do to sell a rose! From stealing pics to changing the color of a photo to make it pure blue, to selling roses with names completely made up! You need to let us know at least what plant it is so we can flood that person with emails telling them what we think of them stealing photos. I had one of mine taken for an EBAY rose last year, and I had my assistant here at work email them constantly about stealing my pic. I finally bought the plant they were selling, and just ripped them a new ***** in the feedback section, but there should be an easier way to resolve issues like this.

The auction has been ended by eBay! Yeah. The lister actually emailed me back saying that I should have taken it as a compliment. Not to be so touchy! Can you believe that?I told him that it really creeped me out to see a listing with a picture of my house on eBay!

eBay sellers of the forum ~ I love eBay! I have gotten some really great stuff and have sold stuff there too. I know that most of the sellers are ethical and trustworthy! I get lots of obscure plants, seeds, and bulbs that you can't find on anywhere on eBay.(Himalayan Blue Poppy, next on the list)

The picture was actually of my Nikko Blue Hydrangea. It was not a rose. They could have only gotten it through here though. I have removed my photo album link. Would a pic on an album come up on a Google search? The listing actually said that the pictures were taken, "Today, grown right here in our test fields in Tennessee, this is the actual plant that it was propagated from ." Wow, I'm very far from Tennessee! I was looking for Pia and Annabelle Hydrangeas and then saw a picture of my Nikko Blue in the listings. So weird!
{{gwi:334169}}
I will hound any sellers that are stealing pics! It's not right. I have pretty extensive photo albums of my garden so I can share with my family and friends back home in CA. Thanks for your support, and I will support anyone who gets their photos stolen too. Does it help if you paste your name on them? I might try that.

Who was the seller? The curiosity is killing me especially in light of how unapologetic they are. The audacity, sheesh!

Tell us Adrienne. Please?

Kate

pacnwgrdngirl,
Nothing you said was negative about us EBAY sellers, and I still cannot believe the audacity of the person! I use EBAY to sell my extra (VID) roses I buy from Univer Cal-Davis, since i need only 1, and some of my really rare roses that cannot be purchased any longer. Heck, I sold a Jennfer Hart (VID) rose to Stefanie Powers last week! Well okay, her rep bought it, but I mailed it right to Ms. Powers home. That's my one brush with a celebrity my entire life!!!

I have bought many plants on Ebay. I would like to know which vendors are unethical, so please, I know you want to be nice, but do tell, so we know not to buy from that seller. I think the lies accompanying the photo are, if anything, worse than the theft.

I would be flattered but I am not a picture person.

No need to name names here. Go to eBay, search "nikko blue hydrangea". On the Search Results page, click on "Completed Listings" box in the left column. The item with that photo comes right up.

Connie

I see seller has reposted without using your photo, Adrienne. I won't be buying from them. I have bought a lot of hostas and roses from E-Bay in the past, so thanks for the heads up. Your Nikko is gorgeous! Mine never has old wood to bloom on since I'm Zone 5....frigid freezing winters.

Besides the unauthorized use of the pictures...it's false advertising. You would think if the person grew hydrangeas, they'd be able to get one decent picture of one they were actually growing to use in their ad.

Some people!

mgleason, my brother & I used to love to watch 'Hart to Hart' when we were little. Very cool story! I'm also beginning to see that non-virused roses are the way to go too.
What does "Jennifer Hart' look like? You've got me curious. Has to be red. Reds and purples are my faves.

terryjean, thanks about my hydrangea. Maybe try an Endless Summer. They're supposed to bloom all summer on new wood.

Jennifer Hart is a very dark red. I was asked on another forum to take a good picture of it, so if I get one, I'll post here. I also sent a Jennifer Hart and Lucille Ball to Jack Christensen (the breeder). He saw that I had these and emailed me asking to buy them. How could I sell them to the breeder? Of course I gave them to him. Next he has asked for Patsy Cline and Plum Crazy. That'll have to wait for next year.

The seller appears to have a fairly large operation. This is hardly Granny supplimenting her social security. I shan't be buying from this vendor. I believe there is a way to report ethical violations to Ebay.

When I was thinking about a website that would be mainly be photos of roses, I inquired very deeply into the pros and cons of people pinching photos off a web site. Alas the news wasn't good. Any pictures that are posted on the Internet are fair game for anyone to take off. Even if you copywrite, by the time you get a lawyer and the proof that it was a certain person that stole them, you will be out a lot of money. Watermarks also can be removed as well as writing. Someone on a German nursery took my photo off Gardenweb gallery and then put their name on it. When all I asked them was to take their name off, they said they had taken the photo. So I wrote back and said that I was positive it was mine as I recognized the white flies! There honestly isn't anything you can do to stop a person stealing only just harass them.

Post their name!
I wonder if the "grown here in Tennessee" person was the one near Chattanooga who has never had plants inspected for fire ants/japanese beetle larvae/RRD.
The guy who owns Appalachian Rose who is a friend of mine was really shocked that someone in his area could sell with no inspections where he has to jump through hoops to sell to some states and ethically can't sell to others.

As a web designer who specializes in horticultural websites, I have experience with this situation! This is a big issue with web designers.

Images are very easy for thieves to find. All they have to do is search Google Images. It helps if you don't put the name of the plant near the picture because then the Google Image spider doesn't know its name. But a plant without a name? Very unlikely.

You can complain to the company that hosts the offender's website and they should insist that the stolen image(s) be removed or they will cancel their hosting. I can't imagine that working very often. E-Bay has a host of workers who are working to keep up the reputation of E-Bay. So by all means complain to them!!!!

Printing your name on the image would help, as it takes some effort to remove it.

I use a "no right click" script on every webpage. It means that people cannot simply right click and save the image. However this only works for websites. I have noticed that there is at least one image hosting website that does not allow right clicks. At this moment I cannot think which one it is, but do a Google search for "image hosting" or "photo albums" and test for yourself.

I am not sure, but I am under the impression that the "no right click" script stops the Google Image spider for grabbing the image for its index. Since I have set up pages with this script I no longer see the pics in Google Images.

One of the reasons I stopped blogging is because there is no way to protect my images.

An image-laden website that I do a lot of work for has had numerous images stolen before I put the "no right click" script in place. Since then none of the new images have been stolen. The worst thing about having images stolen is that if the viewer sees an image on two commercial sites, then how are they supposed to be able to determine who the thief is and who took the original? So both sites can potentially look bad.

It would also be worth it for many of us to contact this forum and ask if images can be protected when placed on the forums here.

The no right click thing doesn't work either!
All you simply have to do is view the source page and capture the image directly from the root directory on a website. this totally bypasses the java script that is supposedly blocking right click

You can also drop a script into the HT ACCESS file on the server than can be programmed to display an alternate image or message when they are linking to to images.
You could have a message to display " Stolen from Jane Doe " or the like.

There is no sure fire way at the present time to prevent image capture on the internet. It would be very naive to think otherwise.
The best advise is that if you dont want your pics used by others or will be upset when someone does - then dont upload to the internet