I posted my pic on Monday, April 30, 2007 in this forum topic :
"One of the most charming Dyckia : D. beateae"

Here is a link that might be useful: My previous post

They use a pic in eBay...

Here is a link that might be useful: eBay Item number: 180132205739

stephania...thats Len and Inez Dolotowski of Florida...I would email them if you are sure its your photo. That is why I no longer post photo's here I found 3 in one weeks time used on Ebay without my permission

I guess you have to put some sort of watermark on the images so they aren't compelled to use them.

It's pretty sure it's mine HDD ;-(

Actually, I wouldn't mind if they use my pic for uncommercial purpose
and permission or credit was given,
but it is quite contemtible to lie bidder that the plant belong to them.

Ashamed !

If you have an ebay account there's a place on ebay where you can ask the seller a question - I'd send them a message through that route.

I'm no expert in the area but aren't photos on the Internet considered public domain unless there is a copyright notice either on the picture or your website where the picture originated? (most photo-hosting websites I THINK have language like that, or the option for you to include that, but I'm not 100% sure). Granted, it's kind of tacky to take someone else's picture, download it, then use it for something else even if it isn't copyrighted. A better way to do it would be to use a link, that way people can see its site of origin

This is really unfortunate that someone would use your photo without permission. ebay has some strict rules on this. I would contact them here:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/vero-image-text-theft.html

If you are not signed up, then maybe one of us can help email them to alert them to this.

Definitely contact eBay, here's another link for copyright.

Even posting on the internet, your photos are yours with or without a copyright on them. Most free photohosting sites, say something about the site is allowed to use your photo without permission. Even GW terms of agreement state something about them allowed to use your photos. That's a lot different than unauthorized use.

Stephania,
yes,I agree,that one photo of the three shown is surely your photo in every detail.
richtrav,above,may well be correct in what he posted,and US copyright law may be different than in Thailand.
But in any case,the proper thing would have been to give appropriate photo credits,as most magazine articles do,or request permission to use it.
A small consolation would be the fact that the plant for sale is obviously not your plant,nor is the other photo that is used, to illustrate the plants typical appearence.
It might be a good idea to contact the seller and let him know how you feel about it,so it does not recur in the future. I don't think it was done with any intent to harm or misrepresent the item,as the item is just a small offset.
I,and others here on the GW don't want you to be upset about this,as life is difficult enough at times,and we prefer you to be your happy cheerful self that we all enjoy so much.
So,be happy,life is good !
And post more photos !!
Bob ;^)

Watermarks, garden names, and even peoples names on photos doesn't stop some people from misusing other peoples photos on e-bay and elsewhere. There was one lady awhile back using someones photo with their name on it and when they contacted her about it she told them she took the picture in her garden! I went and looked at her listings and every photo she was using was someone elses, some of them were even marked that they were copywritten. She was using 3 different friends photos and after a number of messages removed them.

I think most people would let you use their photo if they were asked first, and were given credit for the photo in the listing. I know I would allow it.

I agree that you should contact the seller and eBay and complain, but I don't know how much they can do about it. This kind of thing happens all the time. Often when I do a google image search for a particular species I'll see the same image on several different sites and I seriously doubt anyone got permission from the original poster.

I have to admit I've been guilty of some photo piracy myself, but never with any intent to defraud or misrepresent the plant as my own. I have also seen other GW members post pictures as part of their message that I recognized from another site (without attribution), and I'm sure they meant no harm either, but that's a no-no too. If you're using an image from FCBS or Tropiflora, then use it as a link so it can be seen in its proper context. What I'm trying to say is that it's a grey area. When I post pictures here I'm aware that somebody could pirate them. How I'll feel about it if it happens depends on how it is used.

The most tricky part of the eBay listing is this statement: "The mother plant is an awesome speciman as shown in picture 2 and 3." The implication is that the plant pictured there is the mother plant, but if you read it carefully, it doesn't actually say that. It could be interpreted to mean that those pictures show what an awesome specimen it can be. At any rate, they should change the wording to make it clear that that is not the actual plant their pup came off of, since picture 2 is obviously your photo, Stephania.

This seems somewhat useful.

Here is a link that might be useful: what is copyright?

also interesting.

Here is a link that might be useful: 10 myths about copyright

I snatch photos too, but only for my own use and records. If I purchase something on e-bay, I will often capture and save the photo, but only for my reference, not to be used even here. Sometimes I'll just see a really nice photo of a plant I have and add it to one of my "other peoples ________ Photos" albums I have one for Daylilys, Clivias, and Bromeliads (No I haven't lifted any from here). There is a html formula you can put in when you post a photo to keep people from capturing them, but I have not been able to find it, and I'm still not as good with html as I should be.

My daughter did a collage of some sort and had it on her my space site. The next thing someone was using it in theirs, and they direct linked to her photobucket account. She contacted them and asked them to remove it, and they refused so she took a photo of our dogs butt, and gave it the same name as her collage, changed the name on the collage, and made her album private. She showed me the my space, it had a photo of our dogs butt on it for about 2 weeks. The e-mail she got from the person was hysterical, we laughed about it for days. Of course it made that person lok like a horses butt! I always said don't get mad get even!

Stephania, sorry to hear about the use of your photo on ebay. If it happened to me I would do what others have suggested. I would contact the user and if I was not satisfied with their explanation I would refer it to ebay.

In a way, it is almost a compliment that they consider that your photo is good enough to use. I certainly don't condone what they did but I would like to hear what they had to say before passing judgement.

Your photos are excellent and I must own up to the fact that I have downloaded some of your photos from those wonderful Thailand displays. I have a Brom folder where I collect the best brom photos I see on the internet, not for any commercial purpose , but just for browsing and enjoying.

While I am in this confession mood, yes Lisa, hdd, devo, Paul and others. I have some of yours too - but when the internet police come calling I will deny everything.

Usually stephania, Bob, Gonzer and other collectors of tills and spineys are safe from my thievery as they are not my cup of tea. Although, come to think of it I'm sure I have some of Bobs and maybe a few of gonzers as well.

Now, am I in any way repentent for my actions - No way - I'll keep on with my collecting but one think I can promise is that you will NEVER see any of your photos used by me for any other purpose.

Hi Stephania - My sympathies - I stopped posting from on another site because of something similar - we both lose because of this. I would immediatly report the seller to ebay - they have the responsibility to ensure that pictures posted on their site are legal and in this case ebay are in breach of their duty of care - but only if they know it is stolen. They will remove the seller if they get enough complaints.

best regards

Chris

Ebay will do nothing...they allow sellers to use doctored photo's year after year to dupe buyers...many complaints filled on the seller I speak of..this seller has even damaged other sellers 100% feedback when they purchased and filed complaints on the mis-advertised plants.
Bottom line complain to the seller by email and to Ebay and moniter the sellers photo's yourself

FYI,
I happened to read a recent Ebay TurtleWalker plant ad,around early June,by this seller,by name of Len Dolatowski.In the write-up,he mentioned that he was putting much of his stock on sale,and would be having his relatives and friends run the Ebay business for him while he had some major back surgery done,something he was putting off for over 10 years or so,but was now necessary.I would imagine that it has already taken place by now.So,perhaps the picture use could be attributed to someone not too familiar with the rules. This is not to excuse it,but may be a contributing factor.
Bob

Thank you for all of your advices. I have been calm down
and think twice that I will disregard them.
At least, I realize that they are a spiny lover like me
and could be happy to sale stuff easily if they use my pic ('_')'

Stephania, if anything, I'd drop them a short note so they don't grab more of your great photos in the future.

Thanks Philofan (^_^)
Though, I have been eBay member, but already forgot both of my username and password !

I think complaining to the ISP hosting ebay may have more effect. They at least must investigate - probably by then it will be all over anyway. Bad.

Chris

Much discussion on another forum re. pix stealing .
What ebay does now is cancel the listing , they have worked out they can make money out of this now as the person will relist with another pic. later .

Usually when e-bay cancels a listing they credit the listing fees. I made the mistake of telling foreign buyers once that I would accept well concealed cash, and had a couple canceled. Another time I put in no credit card payments through paypal, that is not allowed either.

E-bay has problems.

What gets me is someone on a Clivia forum (not GW) commented on a listing by Mantisbee, (popular with someone here I can't remember who) they were selling seeds of a Clivia they couldn't possibly have. I went and looked and they were also selling 50 inches of San Pedro Cactus. This cactus has the same hallucinigenc qualities as peyote, and is being widly abused. I reported the listing, and they did nothing. The next day I did a search and found a bunch of the same cactus being sold by a bunch of other people, all by the INCH, now why would you sell 3 pieces in a listing by the inch unless it was for a purpose other than growing it as a house plant?

bambe_too.....That seller has had many many many many complaints and EBAY DOES NOTHING from doctoring photo's to selling questionable products

I thought it was you, I agree that seller is bad news, I don't think they sell many Bromeliads though. I'm just amazed that after I told e-bay about how the cactus is being abused as a recreational drug, they have done nothing.

Yes, and I'm waiting to see how my money is safe, I purchased a bunch of Clivia seed from a scammer in Turkey, and got peas. E-bay had already cancelled his listings and closed his account. I filed 3 claims, since I made multiple purchases, and paid in 3 payments.

eBay will credit the fees for legit mistakes only.

eBay irritates me with some people's shipping charges. eBay made a big deal on cracking down on excessive shipping, but when you notify them the listing never gets pulled. I've been looking for a camera tripod, hello, shipping is not $30 to $40. A tripod that heavy wouldn't be very portable now would it?? Common sense, but eBay doesn't see it.

Mantisbee and their "rare AeAe banana seeds", yup they are rare when it's a sterile banana. I used to email the buyers on the seeds, but now Mantisbee has made that listing private.

The seller states that his items are a product of the plants in your picture....this is misrepresentation and fraud....

They should definitely be reported....

eBay has a "special program" that you must sign up for in order to be able to get unauthorized photos removed. I forget what's its called, but when you email them to complain about the usage of your photo, they will direct you there with a link. Its an online form that you fill out. Once you are registered in this program they track the fraud that happens to you through your complaints in this program and remove the offending auctions for you. It has to do with "Theft of Intellectual Property".

I know this because of 2 things:
I had a photo of my daughter (who was 10 at the time) with a plant stolen directly from my Photobucket account and used in an eBay auction by a popular (and well known in from other forums) eBay seller. The only place that photo was ever posted was one time on the G-web Aroid forum.

He claimed he Googled the plant name and found the photo on the net. When I Googled it, it never came up. Why? Because the title of the photo did not have the plant name in it, DUH. There is no way it would pop up on a Google search for the plant name. So I know he followed the link from G-web to my P-bucket acct and nipped the photo.

I confronted him on eBay through the eBay messaging system (so that there would be a record of it) and asked him to remove the photo from his auction. He responded by being rather rude and saying that "if it was on the net he could use it" basically and sending me a link to Copyright law.

I responded by telling him that according to eBay policy, it was fraudulent of him to use a photo that wasn't his, ESPECIALLY with the likeness of someone in it, and ESPECIALLY if that likeness was of a minor child. Which is true. It violates more than one eBay policy.

I later found out that it is illegal to use the likeness of a minor child on the internet or anywhere else without the express permission of the parent or guardian, and had I decided to pursue it, I could have called my lawyer and probably gotten him in trouble. Of course, I did not do that, because he decided probably after he did a bit more research himself and discovered the same thing himself, to remove the photo and put a different one up.

The other way I know it is, I belong to another forum dealing with a specific group of plants where the people there have had many photos nipped, and the admin of the site entered his whole site into eBay's fraud detecting program, so that everytime someone uses a member's photo, they file a complaint for them. Also, that site has a clause that everything posted on it whether written or photographs is automatically copyright protected, so if you post a photo on that site, and later someone misuses it, just by being on that copyright protected site, thay have automatically broken the copyright law and you do have legal grounds to pursue it.

Well Ebay did nothing,,,the seller relisted the item and has changed the listing to read that the mother plant photo is theirs

Here is a link that might be useful: new listing

Well the images are being hosted on a site called www.sellersourcebook.com

This is some kind of subscription site they are using, but here's some of the terms of agreement:

"You explicitly agree, in using this web site or any service provided, that you shall not:

(a) Upload into your account, link to or display within our templates any Content that is: copyright protected by any individual or entity other than yourself, unlawful, illegal, threatening, harmful, abusive, harassing, stalking, tortious, defamatory, libelous, vulgar, obscene, offensive, objectionable, pornographic, contains nudity, designed to or does interfere or interrupt our service or any other service, infected with a virus or other destructive or deleterious programming routine, give rise to civil or criminal liability, or which may violate any applicable local, national or international law(s); "

Stephan, I think you need to contact this website.

Thanks all of my good friends, but I have to say that
I feel reluctant to treat them in bad.
I don't know if they already got to know this 'on air' topic or care of my feeling.
At least they should send me any word, right ?

Perhaps they didn't know, here my e-mail : chaninthorut@yahoo.com

Stephania my friend, that's what they are HOPING you will do....back down and do NOTHING.
If you do, they win.
Look at it this way....
Dyckia beateae is not a common plant. Its a fairly rare and expensive Dyckia as Dyckias go. I paid $40 for mine about 4 years ago.
If they use your most EXCELLENT photograph on their auction, and YOUR PHOTO sells THEIR plant for, oh say, $50, you should be entitled to a cut of that money because in effect, YOU SOLD THE PLANT FOR THEM WITH YOUR MOST EXCELLENT PHOTOGRAPH!

Many buyers on eBay operate on a visceral plane, that is to say, they see the photo and think, "I HAVE TO HAVE THAT!" If there was no photo or a not-so-good as-YOURS photo, that plant might not sell at all, or might sell for less. You are not being paid (and were not even ASKED) to lend you photographs of your great plants to their cause of making money. You should not let them do that, in my personal opinion.

I messaged them this morning, I was civil, but to the point. I have not heard from them in response, and probably won't. They are just another e-bay vendor that I will never purchase anything from.

Okay, let me play devil's advocate here for a moment. I'm not saying that what they did was okay, and I do think you should contact them and let them know how you feel, Stephania. Don't expect them to contact you-- why would they?

Having said that, I don't think the issue of using a photo that is not your own to help you sell your plant is inherently wrong in all circumstances. What if someone asked you what something looked like and you pulled out a book and showed them a picture? Is that wrong? Is the photographer of the picture in the book then entitled to a cut of your sales?

We make most of our living selling heliconias and gingers, mostly bare-root rhizomes. When we take them to the sales they look like nothing-- just a green stump in a bag. Obviously we need a visual aid to make any sales at all. We try to provide a cut flower sample for each variety we're selling. Sometimes those come from our farm and sometimes they come from somewhere else. If we buy a sample flower from another grower, is that misrepresentation?

We don't always have a sample flower to show, so I also make informational signs for each one with a color picture of the flower on it. I keep an extensive file of my own photos for that purpose, but every so often my husband will come to me at the last minute and say he wants to sell this variety at the sale so I need to make a sign. What do I do if I don't have a photo of that flower? I go online and look for one. I make no representation that that is my photo or that it came off of our plant, and they're so small that most of the detail is lost anyway, but we have to have something that will show the general shape and coloration of the flower of that species or we're screwed. Is that fraud? Maybe it is, but I can't see much difference between that and pulling out a picture book.

What I'm trying to say is that there are many shades of grey here. I don't think the issue is whether or not your photo helped them to sell their plant so much as whether or not they have implied by their wording that the plant in the photo is actually their plant. I still think that it stops short af actually saying that, but the implication is so strong that I do believe it is worth complaining.

I agree with Lisa. After being told about this, they now deliberately misrepresent your photo. I think you need to file a complaint with the image hoster and eBay, or you can expect your nice photos to be used by whomever on eBay or in this forum in the future without regards to giving you proper credit.

What's ironic is that they do show a copyright for their template. What's the big deal that Stephania would get credit too?

"graphics and template by melissa
Auction Templates & Image Hosting - The Seller Sourcebook
Copyright 2003 - 2007, Unauthorized Duplication Prohibited"

Having said that, I don't think the issue of using a photo that is not your own to help you sell your plant is inherently wrong in all circumstances.

I agree, but what IS wrong is not asking for Stephania's permission OR giving him credit for the photo. Had they done either he'd probably said ok, and this wouldn't even be an issue.

Legally, you aren't supposed to copy something whether it's a cd or whether it's a book. For the book, you could ask permission to use the photo, or you could put the whole book out for display to let people look through at the photos.

Granted, probably no one is ever going to know, you copied their photo, but on the other hand that's probably what the people thought who took Stephania's photo. Once it has been brought to their attention, a reputable person should ask for his permission, if they don't I agree with Bambi and wouldn't buy anything from them.

Furthermore, I think they have a lot of audacity not to contact Stephania or give credit or remove the photo after they have been contacted, when this is posted on the bottom of their auction.
{{gwi:477377}}

Nothing like the thief not wanting you to steal their stuff.

The image hoster is aware of the issue.

They answered my message, here is their answer.

"Why don't you go to my Webshots page at
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2900431630064494108BMObkQ

and see almost all of my dyckias and other plants I have"

My answer was: "Why bother? They all probably belong to someone else"

My message this morning said:

"Hi Turtlewalker, you must be my friend in Tailand. I did not know you could ship to the US. Ok now lets cut the BS, that photo is not yours. If you have the parent plant why don't you take a photo of it and use that. Your Listing is fraudulent and misleading because you do not own the plant in photo #2 and you are stating it is a pup from that plant. You stole that photo. I purchase a lot of bromeliads on e-bay and have considered a couple of yours, but now that I see how you operate, that will not happen. I also believe you are overcharging for shipping, that plant could probably be shiped for less than $8.00 with delivery confirmation included. It is sellers like you that are ruining e-bay."

They obviously don't care.

My deepest apology to stephania and to anyone else on this forum. I had no idea that I was using your picture. I didn't remember getting it off the internet. I have my own digital camera and my own plants and I take pictures of my plants all the time; and truly believed that the photo I used was my own until a member or 2 of this forum informed me. I went and looked at the picture I was using and the picture that was posted earlier in the year to verify that I done that. Once I had found out I had used someone elses photo unintentionally we quickly closed the listing off of Ebay and took it off of Sellersource our image hosting place and deleted it off our hard drive. I don't know what else to due or say except I am truly sorry.

Leonard Dolatowski

A WORD,
All the above opinions are each valid in their own special way. I like what Lisa wrote,as I was thinking thoughts along those lines myself. The words,'much to do about nothing' come to mind.
Yes,they were very impolite to use the photo,and more so now,as they seem to imply its their plant in the latest ad.[perhaps to keep out of trouble with their image hoster ?]
But one thing nags me, how could they contact Stephania for permission if they had no e-mail address at the time of their original posting? (he later posted one tho). And to give credit to Stephania some how,would be awkward for them,saying to the public,'thats not our plant but,yours might look like that some day'.
But most of all,I feel this puts a lot of undue pressure on Stephania,to 'continue the arguement',when he has already made his own feelings known in his posts dated July 18th and July 20th. If this were happening to me,I'd
feel a little uneasy. He has all the well researched information to decide what to do. I suggest we leave it to him now.
Stephania,you know your many friends all support you 100% what ever you decide.
Bob

Case closed its time to put this one to bed

To all,
After posting my 17:47 post above I went back to find Leo's apology to Stephania,and explantion of events.
This 'hot' topic had some good results,and I'm glad for Stephania's sake. His mind can be at ease again,and we can get back to our normal good times.
"All's well that ends well." (do I need to give credit for that saying ?) ;^0
Smile!
Bob

I'm appreciated, Thank you !
And as Bob said "All's well that ends well."

{{gwi:477378}}

Stephania,
you are just too cool!