Image theft and what you can do.

[onehubdesigns]

IF you watermark your image and someone downloads it, removes your watermark and reuploads it. This action falls outside eBays t&c's. In addition, why does eBay state 'You have selected another sellers listing to help draft your item. Photos from the original sellers listing cannot be reused.' RIDDLE ME THAT. 

Take action against these lazy sellers. 

I AM....

[style_wise]

Do you know that by agreeing to eBay T&Cs you gave eBay the rights to your photos? So in this instance, it would be up to eBay to take action, although you could try reporting it.

Personally what I do when Sellers copy my listings outright is send a polite message asking them to 'make it their own'. Most Sellers are happy to take a bit of time to make their listings individual when you flag it up.

[jonatjonatjonat]

Worth noting watermarks are also against eBay policy.

[roger_roger_over_and_nowt]

Watermarks are not allowed,Ebay dropped that years ago.

See :- https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Announcements/Important-update-on-the-use-of-watermarks-in-pictures-...

[kyanyama]

Not sure what you can do about cheating sellers.  There will always be low life lazy folk.  I tried reporting sellers but not much was done despite it being against the rules.

However it will backfire on those scambugs when buyers get the item not depicted in the photos / description.  Apparently eBay can't do anything about the title (I've had others copy my title exactly!).  They aren't supposed to use others' photos, copy the item specifics nor the written description - but they do.  I had to laugh when my info was copied but it didn't match the seller's photos.  Am sure those low life lazy folk eventually find they end up with returns / defects / dings.

If I find one I do report, might even tell the seller I've reported them (after blocking them first to prevent retaliation).  I just don't understand cheats - must be bad breeding!

[61stephenuk]

What should I do if my image, video or text is being used by another seller?

When you create listings you give eBay and its customers permission, through our User Agreement, to use your images, videos and product details. Your content may be added to the eBay product catalogue, and may be used by other sellers in their eBay listings.

You may contact the seller and ask them to remove your image or text if it is not part of the eBay product catalogue.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/listing-policies/images-text-policy?id=4240

[4_bathrooms]

As per eBay's User Agreement:

"When providing us with content (including causing content to be posted using our Services), you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual (or for the duration of any copyright or other rights in such content), irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to use the content (including, without limitation, creating and using derivative works). We may in particular use your content, including any photographs you upload, for marketing and promotional purposes. This includes (i) offering it to other sellers to use in their listings, and (ii) displaying it to other eBay users as part of the browsing experience on eBay. We will also be allowed to keep a copy of any content (including photographs) you upload in our product catalogue for subsequent use for these purposes. You authorise us to exercise any and all copyright, trademark, publicity, database or other intellectual property rights you have in or to the content in any media known now or developed in the future for these purposes. Further, to the fullest extent permitted under applicable law, you waive your moral rights in the content and promise not to assert such rights or any other intellectual property rights you have in the content against us, our sublicensees or our assignees."

The short version of all that is you forfeit any copyright you have to eBay for all eternity when you create a listing and you further agree not to assert any rights you did have.

There is a way around this, though. You can't transfer any rights you don't have to eBay. For example, if you sell brand new Nike trainers and you use a stock Nike product image you obviously are not handing Nike's copyright over to eBay. When creating listings you need to ensure that you don't own the copyright to the images so the actual copyright owner can assert their rights. 

The simplest way to do this is to create a website that displays a copyright notice at the bottom of every page; the named copyright holder just needs to be a different legal entity to the person who is named in the "Business details" section of your eBay account. If the eBay account holder is "Some Company Ltd" the person named in the website's copyright notice should be "Mr. Some Body" or some other legal entity (person or company); i.e. "All content © 2025 Mr. Some Body". The website doesn't need to be fancy; it can be just an image gallery that contains your images with a copyright notice at the footer of each page as described.

Then, if someone does use one of your images without permission you fill out a notice of claimed infringement (PDF file) and email it to vero@ebay.com. The contact details to enter are those of the person named in the copyright notice that is displayed on the website you created and the reason code is:  "4.2. Listing(s) uses unlawful copy of copyrighted image". In "Works infringed" you enter the website URL where the image is displayed showing the copyright notice (the "Item Number(s)" field should be self-explanatory).     

[porte2425]

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@4_bathrooms wrote:

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The simplest way to do this is to create a website that displays a copyright notice at the bottom of every page; the named copyright holder just needs to be a different legal entity to the person who is named in the "Business details" section of your eBay account. If the eBay account holder is "Some Company Ltd" the person named in the website's copyright notice should be "Mr. Some Body" or some other legal entity (person or company); i.e. "All content © 2025 Mr. Some Body". The website doesn't need to be fancy; it can be just an image gallery that contains your images with a copyright notice at the footer of each page as described.

Then, if someone does use one of your images without permission you fill out a notice of claimed infringement  (PDF file) and email it to vero@ebay.com. The contact details to enter are those of the person named in the copyright notice that is displayed on the website you created and the reason code is:  "4.2. Listing(s) uses unlawful copy of copyrighted image". In "Works infringed" you enter the website URL where the image is displayed showing the copyright notice (the "Item Number(s)" field should be self-explanatory).     

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Surely that would backfire?

As you point out, “if you sell brand new Nike trainers and you use a stock Nike product image you obviously are not handing Nike's copyright over to eBay” – which is why eBay does not (technically) allow you to use these types of images.

So if an IP holder puts in a VERO claim against an image, surely anyone using that image will be banned from doing so, as the IP holder has told eBay that a user cannot use it. They cannot then say that any other user can, as that would mean it needs to be uploaded to eBay, and so would be available to all eBay users, as per the policy.

Simply put, if an IP holder permits one user to use their image on eBay, then they in turn allow all eBay users to use it. If they ban one user, then they ban all users.

[porte2425]

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@roger_roger_over_and_nowt wrote:

Watermarks are not allowed,Ebay dropped that years ago.

See :- https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Announcements/Important-update-on-the-use-of-watermarks-in-pictures-...

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I did not know that the policy (i.e. watermarking) is not enforced, and is only a guide. Thanks for highlighting that post.

[4_bathrooms]

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@porte2425 wrote:

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@4_bathrooms wrote:

...

The simplest way to do this is to create a website that displays a copyright notice at the bottom of every page; the named copyright holder just needs to be a different legal entity to the person who is named in the "Business details" section of your eBay account. If the eBay account holder is "Some Company Ltd" the person named in the website's copyright notice should be "Mr. Some Body" or some other legal entity (person or company); i.e. "All content © 2025 Mr. Some Body". The website doesn't need to be fancy; it can be just an image gallery that contains your images with a copyright notice at the footer of each page as described.

Then, if someone does use one of your images without permission you fill out a notice of claimed infringement  (PDF file) and email it to vero@ebay.com. The contact details to enter are those of the person named in the copyright notice that is displayed on the website you created and the reason code is:  "4.2. Listing(s) uses unlawful copy of copyrighted image". In "Works infringed" you enter the website URL where the image is displayed showing the copyright notice (the "Item Number(s)" field should be self-explanatory).     

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Surely that would backfire?

As you point out, “if you sell brand new Nike trainers and you use a stock Nike product image you obviously are not handing Nike's copyright over to eBay” – which is why eBay does not (technically) allow you to use these types of images.

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eBay does allow the use of stock photos but only if the item condition is "New", "New Other" or an equivalent condition. A retailer of new Nike trainers who purchased their stock directly from Nike or an otherwise authorised source can use stock photos - their account terms will usually state the conditions under which stock images are permitted to be used. 

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@porte2425 wrote:

So if an IP holder puts in a VERO claim against an image, surely anyone using that image will be banned from doing so, as the IP holder has told eBay that a user cannot use it. They cannot then say that any other user can, as that would mean it needs to be uploaded to eBay, and so would be available to all eBay users, as per the policy.

Simply put, if an IP holder permits one user to use their image on eBay, then they in turn allow all eBay users to use it. If they ban one user, then they ban all users.

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A VeRO takedown request for copyright infringement is made against one or more listings; the item numbers associated with the listing(s) have to be provided in the NOCI. A takedown request does not result in every eBay user being banned from including a specific copyrighted image in their listings - if it did then nobody could use Nike's (nor anybody else's) stock images. When a listing is taken down the user is told why and who to contact to resolve the matter. 

This is actually the method we use to protect any images we take ourselves. The placeholder website employs noindex robots meta tags to prevent any content being indexed in Google or other search engines thus preventing reverse image searches finding the original copyrighted content.

[mintsource3000]

Having listened to our sellers’ views on this, we’ve decided not to enforce this policy and to keep it in place as guidance only.

[porte2425]

Okay. I get where you are coming from.

I’ll take your word that is how it works in reality.

The fact is that it shouldn’t work like that. But it sounds like another case of eBay’s T&Cs conflicting with themselves.

If User X uploads an image to eBay, then they are saying they have permission from the copyright holder to upload it, and they agree to let other eBay users use it too.

If User Y uses that same image from User X, then User X has indirectly given User Y the permission to.

So, if Copyright Holder says the image User Y is using is not authorised, then User X should not be allowed to use it either.

If Nike are Copyright Holder, then they are unlikely to care about users using their stock images, as it is more business for them. And so they are unlikely to ever deny User X using their image, but allow User Y (they can certainly just deny User X from selling their product under VeRO). If they do ever want to ban one of their images from being used (perhaps it was part of a, now embarrassing to them, marketing campaign, for example), then banning a specific image for one user should ban it for all.

But I’ve honestly now given up trying to make sense of eBay’s policies. There seems to be many loopholes. And then there are the times when CS agents just do what they want anyway.

Glad to hear you’ve found a solution to this problem though.

[4_bathrooms]

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@porte2425 wrote:

If User X uploads an image to eBay, then they are saying they have permission from the copyright holder to upload it, and they agree to let other eBay users use it too.

If User Y uses that same image from User X, then User X has indirectly given User Y the permission to.

So, if Copyright Holder says the image User Y is using is not authorised, then User X should not be allowed to use it either.

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That is not how it works. As per eBay's User Agreement when you upload content to eBay you forfeit any rights you have; you can't forfeit any rights that you don't have. In your example user X never gave user Y permission to use the image because user X was not the copyright holder to begin with; they were simply using a copyrighted image with the copyright holder's permission. The copyright holder filed a NOCI to report user Y's listing for using their image without permission; that does not automatically mean user X's listing was reported as well. The important thing to understand is the copyright holder is reporting a listing for using their copyrighted image without permission; they are not reporting an image for being copyrighted.

[valueaddedresource]

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@porte2425 wrote:

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@roger_roger_over_and_nowt wrote:

Watermarks are not allowed,Ebay dropped that years ago.

See :- https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Announcements/Important-update-on-the-use-of-watermarks-in-pictures-...

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I did not know that the policy (i.e. watermarking) is not enforced, and is only a guide. Thanks for highlighting that post.

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Yes, eBay decided not to enforce this policy on watermarks, largely due to massive backlash from sellers with thousands of items who said they refused to edit their images.

However, what many sellers don't know is that eBay didn't abandon the idea completely - they just simply cut sellers out of it and now use AI to remove watermarks for Google and other external search engines while keeping the watermarked version of the image intact for on eBay searches, with the seller often being none the wiser and having no idea eBay has altered their images for external search.

 Senior Manager eBay Advertising, Alan Feder, let that cat out of the bag at eBay Open in the US this year - more info, including screenshots, from a post I made about it over on the US boards:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Is-eBay-Using-AI-To-Alter-Seller-Images-For-External-Search/td... 

[porte2425]

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@4_bathrooms wrote:

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@porte2425 wrote:

If User X uploads an image to eBay, then they are saying they have permission from the copyright holder to upload it, and they agree to let other eBay users use it too.

If User Y uses that same image from User X, then User X has indirectly given User Y the permission to.

So, if Copyright Holder says the image User Y is using is not authorised, then User X should not be allowed to use it either.

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That is not how it works. As per eBay's User Agreement when you upload content to eBay you forfeit any rights you have; you can't forfeit any rights that you don't have. In your example user X never gave user Y permission to use the image because user X was not the copyright holder to begin with; they were simply using a copyrighted image with the copyright holder's permission. The copyright holder filed a NOCI to report user Y's listing for using their image without permission; that does not automatically mean user X's listing was reported as well. The important thing to understand is the copyright holder is reporting a listing for using their copyrighted image without permission; they are not reporting an image for being copyrighted.

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Okay, well that’s the bit (of VeRO) that I wasn’t aware of.

On other websites, if a takedown request is issued for an image, then that image is effectively banned – i.e. it cannot be uploaded/used on the website again. So User Y may have been the one reported, but User X would not be able to use the image anymore either.

[jonatjonatjonat]

That would be because Google, unlike ebay DO have the technology to refuse images that aren't on white backgrounds in Google Shopping.

Google can basically suppress listings in Google Shopping if the image supplied doesn't meet their requirements. That's obviously not in ebays (or the sellers interests) so this makes sense. 

[valueaddedresource]

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@jonatjonatjonat wrote:

That would be because Google, unlike ebay DO have the technology to refuse images that aren't on white backgrounds in Google Shopping.

Google can basically suppress listings in Google Shopping if the image supplied doesn't meet their requirements. That's obviously not in ebays (or the sellers interests) so this makes sense. 

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@jonatjonatjonat  true, though more recently Google has loosened up on the white background and said that while it is still recommended, it is no longer required and images with non-white backgrounds will not be suppressed.

But Google does still say that watermarks will cause images to be blocked and that's why eBay takes it upon themselves to remove them - and honestly I wouldn't even have a problem with that if eBay explicitly informed sellers upfront that they do it and gave sellers the option of having their images altered by AI or not appearing in Google.

It's the lack of upfront communication about it that doesn't sit right with me, especially since (as shown in my screenshots in that thread in the US community) AI may alter the image in other ways or make the image not an exact representation of the actual item for sale, which could potentially lead to item not as described claims.

[porte2425]

Okay, that’s interesting. The reason I used to watermark my images was not because of anyone else using it on eBay – I knew they were allowed. I didn’t want someone on a competitor website using it. It appears that eBay have made this possible themselves, all in the name of keeping advertising partners happy.