Stolen or “Borrowed” Images

This seems to happen alot with video games and rarities: Stolen or “Borrowed” images (I quoted the word borrowed because I’ve gotten this excuse many many times when I tried to tell the seller to remove the images from his listing). One of the most annoying things as a collector and as a seller that I had to deal with was having other people’s or my photos stolen after the listing had either ended or they just looked up some similar images through Google. It is a proven fact that if you market your listing well, meaning having a very good description or detailed photos, that it will end at a decent price. Also, if its featured here on gameSniped, you might have yourself a few hundred or a few thousand bucks extra.

Often times you have a person who barely plays games or claims they don’t have a digital camera would steal or borrow (at least thats what they claim to be doing) your photo(s) and use it on their listing. This not only violates your own copyright, but also violates eBay’s Image and Text policy.

I’m pretty sure those who’re reading this will know this already. Why else would you visit a blog that focuses on video game collectibles?

Here are some of the things you should do as a seller and as a buyer:

As a seller, If you know that your item is rare and collectible and are willing to part with it through eBay, make sure that you either:

• a) describe the item well enough so that anyone looking for the item in a specific condition wouldn’t have to bother asking you that same question.
• b) probably the most important information you can provide is an actual picture of the item for sale. stealing or borrowing someones image, regardless of how similar they are, still does not provide an accurate representation of the item you’re selling.

If you do find out someone’s using your images without your permission, contact eBay support immediately. If you want the listing to end faster, I suggest doing a Chat Support because they will escalate the problem quickly and the item you’re reporting will get pulled much faster. This actually helps for those listing that are just about to end or had ended already. If you are a buyer reporting to eBay they will not be able to do anything, which sucks really.

If you found out as as a buyer that the image was stolen, you know that you should ask first whether or not the item is strikingly similar to the actual item they’re selling. I’m not sure if anyone remembers, but Link posted about the Red Dead Redemption Launch kit that ended at $1,700 USD. I mentioned in the comments that the person stole the image from a previous listing I posted not to mention that someone spotted that there may be some shill bidding going on (aka people falsifying a bid to increase it).

Tonight’s culprit is for a Dead Space Ultra Limited Edition (photo was stolen from Gaming Bits in which I featured on my first blog post here on GS). Maybe the seller would be able to afford his own camera once he sells his copy for a mere $300. And that’s another thing, as a collector I do tend to take advantage of listings who only provides a “stock photo”. That’s actually one of the reasons why they end for alot less than what they normally would go for. There are exceptions of course, like this one that ended at $177 even though it was a stock photo auction. Maybe the seller could have sold it for alot more if he had an actual photo.