topic Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores. in Selling

Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

threepeasdesignscustominvites — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 08:49:01 GMT

I sell invitations on Ebay and luckily I have been so successful that it has become my main source of income.

Yesterday I came across two sellers who have both blatantly ripped off my designs. Place my original next to their rip off and there is no difference - except the quality of the work.

I have sent a cease and desist letter to both. One apologised and removed the offending listing straight away.

The other has not replied and is not removing her listings, in fact she listed another.

Today I did a quick search and have found the seller who refuses to take down the listing has 2 accounts from which she is selling exactly the same items.

Is this even allowed? And if not, how do we report it?

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

chameleon54 — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:33:46 GMT

If her listing photos and description are identical to you it breaches ebay policy and you could contact ebay trust and safety to lodge a complaint.

If she has copied your invitation designs but listed it differently to you, it would be a copyright issue. You would need to take this up with a lawyer as copyright is not directly an ebay issue, although they will remove items if a breach of copyright is proved.

Sellers are allowed to have seperate ID,s to sell identical items. Many sellers on the boards ( myself included ) have more than one selling ID.

Good luck with this one. It would be very upsetting to find someone had stolen your own designs and was selling them in competition with you.

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

joethenuts — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:45:14 GMT

sorry let me get this right ,you are complaining about sellers pinching your designs ,when did you get permision to use batman frozen and other cartoon pictures on your designs , if i am not mistaken they are licence products mmmmmmmmmmm

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

t-shirts-au — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:59:10 GMT

"Sellers are allowed to have seperate ID,s to sell identical items. Many sellers on the boards ( myself included ) have more than one selling ID. "

Sorry chameleon54, that is incorrect

" Restricted

More than one listing of an identical item listed separately by the same seller:

Under another eBay user ID"

While this is the rule, we have found eBay do not enforce it strictly even after reporting it.

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

t-shirts-au — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 12:03:20 GMT

Claiming the designs in your store are 'my designs' is a bit hypocritical as joethenuts has pointed out. That's a lot of copyright being infringed upon in your store.

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

transport-posters — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 12:03:37 GMT

Hmm, interesting observation. If one is allowed to create their own designs using massively franchised commercial characters like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Frozen and Thomas the Tank Engine, then tomorrow I am going to start making my own designs and make a fortune from this! I always thought copyright stood in the way. Seems some other sellers have already got the jump on me! Better get to it!

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

chameleon54 — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 12:15:12 GMT

Hi T-shirts-au, Thanks for the heads up.

My understanding was that a seller could not sell identical listings on the same account, but could sell the same products with a different listing ( not copied ) on a seperate account. Are you saying that this directly breaches ebays policies and you have read this in the policies ? Thanks.

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

chameleon54 — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 12:26:22 GMT

Found it thanks. You can have identical listings using auctions, but not BINS. This applies to single and multiple selling ID,s. This info comes direct from ebays policies.

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

i-love-my-sheep — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 12:43:41 GMT

@transport-posters wrote:
Hmm, interesting observation. If one is allowed to create their own designs using massively franchised commercial characters like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Frozen and Thomas the Tank Engine, then tomorrow I am going to start making my own designs and make a fortune from this! I always thought copyright stood in the way. Seems some other sellers have already got the jump on me! Better get to it!

If Disney gets a wiff of it they can go you for copyright. Not something I'd be touching personally! Apparently they are cracking down on fake items.

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

saarzi — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 12:51:30 GMT

Disregard this if your products are lisenced.... but....As the others have said. Anyone with half a brain who is copying your designs already knows you cant report them - youd only bring attention to your own illegal activity. Its no wonder they are ignoring your emails. Ill guess they are in China, where the copyright laws are very different to ours, and what they are doing is probably not illegal (hence why we get so much fake products from China) - they will get away with it. You wont, if someone reports you to the right person.

All those images you are using are protected by the Australian copyright law of 1968, and the international copyright treaties, and the international Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Australia included in the list of signed up countries). Australia is required to act.

Its been in the news here recently that Disney has been cracking down on people using unlisenced merchandise (after the success of Frozen). One Amazon seller that Im aware of has been slapped with a lawsuit and their assets frozen. I know people who have lost their house and gone to jail from selling stuff using unlicensed images on tshirts etc Paddys Markets in Sydney (5 years I think it is).

Its not only criminally illegal (jail time / fines), but you can also personally be sued..

If I were you, id remove all the illegal stuff immediately... or keep very, very quite and pray no one reports you.

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

saarzi — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 13:14:26 GMT

oh i just want to point out - you dont have to steal the image directly downloading it from Disney (or anyone else) for this to be illegal. You could have drawn it all from scratch - its still illegal.

And i just noticed you have also ripped off the Frozen trademark - it doesnt have to be *exactly* like the Disney image for it to be illegal (so you cant claim, 'oh but the Frozen font is slightly different'). It only needs to look or sound similar enough that somewhere, someone *might* confuse it for being associated with the original (a disclaimer means nothing).

You can read all the copyright laws / treaties / trade agreements online. There is masses of information about them available.

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

transport-posters — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 13:25:42 GMT

I forgot to type that in the sarcasm font. 🙂

I really hope for their sake that all that stuff they have made and sold is properly licenced.

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

saarzi — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 13:31:41 GMT

*hopesnoonenoticesIvarythespellingof'licensed'eachtimeI typeitbecauseIhavenoideahowtospellitnomatterhowmanytimesImtoldand itsastupidwordanyway*

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

fmurphy2005 — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 13:26:06 GMT

I was looking through my old forum posts for something else and came across this memorable thread. Curious to see how this seller was going, I saw no items and then checked the feedback...!!!

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

the_great_she_elephant — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 15:00:41 GMT

Good grief - looks like she's panicked and done a runner.

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

mbselections00 — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 17:38:56 GMT

Well and truly !! But why is she still a Registered User ? Why wouldn't eBay shut her down completely ?

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

jessicadazzler97 — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 21:18:08 GMT

Like the others have said, there's not that much you can do. If you contact eBay they might be able to help, but really, is it worth the trouble? Your only problem would be if she was listing her design at a lower price than yours.

But I totally understand that you don't like it. I had someone copy my description for a book they were selling that was exactly the same as mine. I did send them a message to ask them to change their description, but they never replied and I never checked back to see if they had changed it or not.

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

wendshees-rocks — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 00:33:50 GMT

@jessicadazzler wrote:
Like the others have said, there's not that much you can do. If you contact eBay they might be able to help, but really, is it worth the trouble? Your only problem would be if she was listing her design at a lower price than yours.

But I totally understand that you don't like it. I had someone copy my description for a book they were selling that was exactly the same as mine. I did send them a message to ask them to change their description, but they never replied and I never checked back to see if they had changed it or not.

Given the original message was written 5 months ago and the OP has only written one message to the forums, I doubt she will be back to read your reply. I'd say she's either been negged into below standard, or been arrested for copyright breach given she hasn't had any listings for 2 months.

It's very easy to jump on the bandwagon with the latest kid fad, but people have to be really careful. The fad will pass, they always do, but the damage to your reputation can last a life time, especially if you end up with a criminal record out of it. I read somewhere that when Disney was cracking down on fake merchandise, they weren't just suing the person, they were demanding all money made from the sale of that fake stuff.

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

mbselections00 — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 01:12:17 GMT

wendshee, take a look at OP's Feedback (I'd guess she panicked & dropped her bundle) - absolutely the worst I've ever seen & yet she's still a registered user ?? That bit I don't get . . . . . . . not that she's got any listings now, so one would hope, she's stopped and it was a genuine lack of understanding on her part in the beginning, just someone trying to make a few extra $'s - but of course there is also the possibility she knew exactly what she was doing and is using a new ID

Re: Blatant rip off & duplicate stores.

wendshees-rocks — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 09:00:49 GMT

@mbselections00 wrote:
wendshee, take a look at OP's Feedback (I'd guess she panicked & dropped her bundle) - absolutely the worst I've ever seen & yet she's still a registered user ?? That bit I don't get . . . . . . . not that she's got any listings now, so one would hope, she's stopped and it was a genuine lack of understanding on her part in the beginning, just someone trying to make a few extra $'s - but of course there is also the possibility she knew exactly what she was doing and is using a new ID

I know, it's atrocious isn't it? I wouldn't be able to show my face in public if that was my feedback! I nearly cried when a buyer gave me 2 a few weeks back, let alone all those!