What to do when they STEAL YOUR TEXT???

iSpot

iSpot

O.G.
Mar 29, 2006
547
1
#1
Hi, I've been selling for +- 2 months, so not for a longtime but now there's this person in Germany who's stealing my description text. I'm selling a Victor&Rolf for h&m trench and she just literally copied the text (same font, colours) and only adjusted the size :cursing: I reported it on ebay.com and ebay.de (germany) but the german site sent me an email back and said they can't do anything about it (if I translated it correctly)...is this right? I know, maybe stealing pictures is worse but still...it's MY text (and use of colour:shame:smile:.
 
#4
its still theft even if its just text, they should have taken the other auction down if you reported it, the form usually asks for the auction number of your auction as well as the other auction
 
#5
Keep reporting her!!!

That's funny you posted this thread because a few days ago a seller did the same exact thing to me. But, I was even more ticked off b/c she had asked me SEVERAL questions on a $$$ I had up the week before, only to find out that she was using me for sizing advice in a couple of European brands.

Then, I was doing my daily search on Louboutin, and I saw a pair of heels I liked...wrong size, but I still look anyways b/c I like looking at the pictures. lol

I discovered it was the same girl that had asked me numerous questions. I was like oh ok, she did a pre-order and they didn't fit her, that stinks. I continued to read the auction and noticed that EVERY SINGLE WORD, AUCTION TERMS, SHIPPING, EVERYTHING was really familiar. Why you ask, b/c she conveniently stole it ALL from me. The only thing that was her own were the pictures. Maybe she would have copied those too if they didn't suck so bad or if I had the same item up for sale. LOL

Regardless, I was POed and I reported her and Ebay immediately took her auction down. I was almost tempted to email her as I have her personal e-mail and ask her where she got her fabulous auction format and text, but I let it go. :rolleyes:

I think that pictures are definitely a bigger deal (w/o asking the seller of course for permission), but it does irritate me that she didn't even bother to ask, she just stole my exact words. Sorry your auctions suck, but I have been using the same format for years so she needs to come up w/ her own.

She put the auctions back up and very little was changed other than a word here and there, but I didn't care to report her again because I knew she would be aware it was me and I didn't want her messing w/ any of my things in retaliation.

Ebay stinks sometimes as far as when you report items for whatever reason, but like the PP said, just keep reporting it. Good luck!
 
#7
Thank you guys for the input. :flowers:
They still didn't take the auction down...I know it's not as bad as stealing pics but still..the layout, the exact words...She could have stolen the pic from someone else as well!!
I mailed her through ebay and said she/he should be more creative :sad: I still put a lot of effort in it and think is stealing, for me it's actually the same as stealing pics.:rant:
 
#8
ashakes said:
Ebay stinks sometimes as far as when you report items for whatever reason, but like the PP said, just keep reporting it. Good luck!
Click to expand...

That's really sucks what happened to you...I know it's not only the words, it's also the format which is really personal and that's what's bothering me too!!

I'm really an honest girl but when you don't have enough feedback they treat you as s***!! They took a few auctions down (all authentic) from me and now they can't do anything about this :confused1:
 
#9
UGH that is SO annoting!! This is weird, but I was selling Aritzia clothing (Women's clothing boutique in Toronto) and some girl was stealing my formatting. I have a very distinct style with colour / font / size etc, and her auctions were a blatant rip off of mine - she was selling some of the exact same items. She was taking my titles too! I didn't report it because obviously something like that is not an infraction, but it irked me like crazy!
 
#11
um, who cares. i'm having a hard time understanding why people take these things so seriously. pics, i can maybe understand because the other person might be selling fakes with your pics or something, but the text? it's not like it's an artistic creation or something. it's just a description. and the 'thief' is just too lazy to write one of their own. maybe it's a bit annoying but in the greater scheme of things, is it really that big a deal?
 
#12
well, i care that i have sat down and spent a good chunk of my time composing an auction description, only to find that some lazy idiot has come along and used it to make money on their own auction. it's bloody irritating, 'scuse the french.
no, its not a great huge problem , but even so .....
 
#13
sputnik said:
um, who cares. i'm having a hard time understanding why people take these things so seriously. pics, i can maybe understand because the other person might be selling fakes with your pics or something, but the text? it's not like it's an artistic creation or something. it's just a description. and the 'thief' is just too lazy to write one of their own. maybe it's a bit annoying but in the greater scheme of things, is it really that big a deal?
Click to expand...

I respectfully disagree - I sell and buy a lot on Ebay, and this is written from the seller's perspective. I spend a lot of time on my descriptions. These are the things that go into creating a description: (1) I provide fabric content; care instructions; detailed description of garment/item; if it is a little known designer, I try to include information about the designer. I save my descriptions of different designers so that I don't have to recreate the background for the items. With regard to your statement, you say, "it's not like it's an artistic creation or something. it's just a description." Well, if it is just a description, everyone should be able to write their own description. Don't copy mine! Here is the page where this kind of conduct is SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITED BY EBAY: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/vero-image-text-theft.html

It is called theft for a reason - because you are stealing someone's work product.

Ebay says: "eBay members are not allowed to use another eBay user's pictures or descriptions in their listings or About Me pages without the owner's permission." So when someone says it is not a big deal, that is a reflection on that person's character. And I'll let everyone here make their own judgment as to what it says about that person's character.
 
#14
^^^
well, how diligent of you to go to all that trouble. what i'm saying is that ebay doesn't even take the time or effort to really do anything about people selling fakes, do you really think anything will be done about people poaching descriptions? realistically? and when something happens that i know doesn't really have a solution, i say, best not to get too pissed off. there's no point.
another thing: if i post something on the internet, i consider that it's no longer really mine and that it's prone to people copying it/stealing it. the only safeguared against that is maybe watermarking pictures, but anything else you post, there really is no way to protect it. if it makes you so angry, stick to less elaborate and time-consuming descriptions. or, just take it in stride and think of the old saying: 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'...
 
#15
sputnik said:
^^^
well, how diligent of you to go to all that trouble. what i'm saying is that ebay doesn't even take the time or effort to really do anything about people selling fakes, do you really think anything will be done about people poaching descriptions? realistically? and when something happens that i know doesn't really have a solution, i say, best not to get too pissed off. there's no point.
another thing: if i post something on the internet, i consider that it's no longer really mine and that it's prone to people copying it/stealing it. the only safeguared against that is maybe watermarking pictures, but anything else you post, there really is no way to protect it. if it makes you so angry, stick to less elaborate and time-consuming descriptions. or, just take it in stride and think of the old saying: 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'...
Click to expand...

I think it's down to how angry you get over things. For me, if someone stole my text i'd be angry for about 5 minutes and then i'll get over it, but then again I don't write much text at all. Some people write those elaborate essays of an auctions and I can definitely understand why they get angry because they probably spent an hour on that, and someone else just copied it in a second.

And we shouldn't take the view that 'it's right' because ebay doesn't care about it. Universities expel people for plagiarism (i'm reminded every two days by email), newspapers will most likely fire you, so on so forth. It's not something that's 'not important', maybe less important in this context, but the fact that someone has been copying someone's work like that means they've already gotten off on the wrong foot with their values.

I do think it's a rather big deal if you think about it. Maybe he will steal her pictures next time. It's like asking 'was that small thief who came into my house and stole my $30 stool such a big deal?' I don't think you'd appreciate it if you posted that and I said 'who cares, I mean your house is worth way more and it's not gone is it?'
 
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