[Rex W.]

How can anyone do anything? Al's name is no where on the pic. No proof that its his.

Originally Posted by cecil98 Dano, that's a good idea but, If Al uses eBay or intends to, bidding on and winning items and not actually paying for them can get you in trouble with eBay and diminish your reputation as a buyer and seller. I would contact eBay first and let them know what you're doing. They might, then, go along with it and not penalize you.

If you tell eBay, they may tell you NOT to bid on the item and let them handle it, but they aren't always as prompt as they should be. If Al otherwise has a good record, I don't think that one bad mark (with an explaination) will hurt him. If the seller gets kicked off or otherwise reprimanded, I'm sure eBay would remove it anyway.

If you read my next post (posted before I saw all these replies), I had a situation where I was trying to keep a seller from sending a stolen physical item from being sent to another buyer, and this process worked for me. I was able to jerk the seller around long enough to get the authorities to take action and get the item recovered and he never knew that I was the auction's winner. And, I never got the negative, either.

[Pat O'Connor Fan]

Originally Posted by Bubzilla I'm not saying that this is the case, but it is possible that the seller received the photo as a gift from someone else that pirated it, and he's selling it without knowing that.

Joe, the guy has 245 photo auctions oneBay right now. He must get a hell of a lot of gifts for your scenario to be the case.

[tonyj]

I asked the seller if this was his pic....or has permission to sell it. Should be interesting to see his reply.

Originally Posted by Rex W. How can anyone do anything? Al's name is no where on the pic. No proof that its his.

I'm no expert on copyrights, but I would think that the pic with his name/copyright on the website would be pretty good proof that it is his intelectual property. He can show that it is the same pic with that info cropped off and ask why it would be cropped if not to remove his name/copyright.

Now, he may not be able to prove this to ebay in 6 hours, or eBay may not want to intervene, but outside of the eBay system, Al has a case to make and if he wants to protect his copyright rights, he should persue.

[Russ]

Al, I know John Mahoney has faced this same problem several times. You might email him to see how he handles it.

Well, the first thing I'd do is cut his balls off.

But, given that we live in a society with laws, here is how this works.

1. Send an email to eBay asking for the item to be taken down. Provide eBay with the copy of the photo that you feel is the same as the one the seller is offering. This is what the lawyers call a "take down notice". No lawyer needs to be involved in this step.

2. If you find that the item has been sold already, then you need to determine if the seller represented the photo as being his own. If he did then you have copyright violation. What you can do about that in terms of suing for damages depends on whether or not you registered that photo with the U.S. Copyright office. All photos have an implied copyright granted the person who took the photo but you cannot seek monetary damages for copyright infringement unless you go through the motions of actually documenting the copyright.

Here's a link to a page covering this: http://www.digicamhelp.com/learn/com...s/register.php

Copyright office procedure and forms link here: http://www.copyright.gov/forms/

It would be easier to just cut his balls off. :wink

Personally, I don't care if people use any of my photos in promotional efforts for their own team as long as the copyright stamp is not removed from the photo and I am given credit for the photo. But when someone goes and sells that photo like is being done here to Al, that's just outright theft. That thief did not stand out in the hot sun to take that shot. That thief did not put their life at risk standing trackside to shoot that. And yet they feel insulated in their act of crime because they can do it semi-anonymously on eBay. :angry-smiley-007:

what gets me he cut off Al's name then puts a camera in the other corner like its his !!!Randy Smith

Al generously has posted some of his photos for us to enjoy on indianaopenwheel.com. Copying those images even for ourselves is theft. Most people do not realize that what is copyrighted is the actual image, not the physical reproduction of that image.
How many people on this board have copied Al's photos? Each person who did is guilty of theft.
There may be no good answer for the present, but maybe Al's solution for the future is to no longer share his photos with us.
Jim Morrison

[Fred Zirzow]

Looks like he is running...He ended all his midget and sprint stuff early...:Steer


http://search-completed.ebay.com/_W0...*nitro&guest=1