you gotta laugh!

[purpledragon]

A customer of mine holds the copyright license to numerous fishing prints which i have permission to reproduce , he was just on the phone telling me of someone on ebay selling photo copies of the prints so he's sent them a cease and desist message which basically states , i can see you have sold x amount of these prints you are in breach of copyright and we intend to persue this in the courts for a figure of £50 per print you have sold . The guys response made me laugh his first line was " christ just chill man " had to share it it just tickled me . apparantly the guy did go on to say he couldnt see what the problem was but would take the listing down . I think it was pointed out that although the print costs him pennies to photocopy and sell for pennies on ebay it costs my customer thousands in license fees advertising rent rates yadda yadda yadda. the serious side of this is people really need to know the damage they are doing to legit companies when making pin money by selling cheap inferior reproductions on places like ebay . I think my customer has let him off the hook when he took the listings down not sure idve been as generous

[GoonerGary]

Multiply that by two dozen ebayers and welcome to my life!

[ArtyGamer]

I've had my designs nicked and posted up on RedBubble. It's infuriating. I don't even know how this guy managed to sell this particular design because even the preview of it was really blurred like he'd found the image on Google, thought "oooh I'll have that" and uploaded it as his own design. He changed it from landscape to portrait. That's all. I messaged him, and mentioned that four of his designs were actually mine and when he eventually replied he was very apologetic, removed them immediately, and thanked me for not going mental on him "like the others did". So he's done it before, been told to take them down before, and yet kept doing it. People are idiots.

The worst thing for me (other than an old client deciding to sell my software years ago) was a series of parody prints I'd designed as A2 prints. They were limited edition prints, numbered, and sold directly on eBay using card stock that couldn't be copied. Then maybe a year later I got a message from someone on DeviantART telling me that they'd just bought a set of prints with my designs at a gaming expo but they weren't very high quality. I asked for photos, which they were happy to mail over, and it was like someone had scanned my prints in (bearing in mind you can't really copy them) and then converted them to vector... holy crap, they were terrible! That was close to four years ago now and I'm STILL getting messages from people telling me about this person or that person selling my designs as their own. It's a real kick in the face.

[Mattie]

I don't have any designs but I get people stealing my product images, website banners and facebook post images all the time luckily I have some nice customers who email me letting me know and sometimes when I have time I search google

It gets on my nerves as I've worked hard to get where I am and other people take the shorts cuts of stealing from others, I never let them get away with when I catch them if they don't remove the images they get a letter from my solicitor, once I get the letter sent that normally works.

[socialgiraffe]

One of my clients is One Direction... hence I never go anywhere near Ebay as I like my blood pressure to stay relatively calm!

S>

[socialgiraffe]

And there was someone on here (www.wehaveany.com) that also infringed copyright big time and then had the front to say that he had permission which was a bare faced lie.

[GoonerGary]

Banksy and shutterstock sourced images...classic copyright infringement. I had dozens of original designs stolen, put onto products and sold in direct competition to me for half the price...all home made tat. Don't be afraid to send legal letters and collect money. Solicitors are "business expenses" and might actually save your business from a counterfeiter; better than giving it to the tax man. There is always the new Small Claims Track for straightforward copyright claims..no solicitors necessary.

[Mattie]

And there was someone on here (www.wehaveany.com) that also infringed copyright big time and then had the front to say that he had permission which was a bare faced lie.

these are not far away from me lol

I don't bother with Ebay as there is no point in trying to compete with the prices people charge on there, and it has a rep for being cheap tat, I already get customers emailing me saying they got a case off ebay and it was pants and they happy with mine.

I always send an email first nice and polite then give them 4 days to reply if not then I contact me solicitor to send letter, had to go down small claims route only twice over the years as the letter normal gets people to remove them