Mewnduzt in eBay Copyright Theft
Mewnduzt of Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, United Kingdom, stole our 1817 George III gold sovereign photograph, then claimed, on eBay, that it was a 'stock' photo.
High eBay Feedback is No Guarantee of Integrity or Honesty
When we wrote this page, this eBay member's feedback was 5; with 100% positive according to eBay.
Sample Listing
Sovereign coin Queen Elizabeth II set in cable ring
Collectors Half Sovereign coin Queen Elizabeth II cable ring
This is a beautiful item which also has a basic scrap value
Ring with coin complete with Half Sovereign Queen Elizabeth II set in 9crt gold cable ring
Main picture is stock photo. Other photos are of actual item. This is a genuine personally owned Half Sovereign ring. The scrap value of the coin was quoted at £100. The weight and value of the coin and ring combined has not been investigated.
This listing is for the complete ring with cased coin complete
The main photo shows a stock picture of a 1989 Half Sovereign to show the design picture in detail as the ring makes focussing on the beautiful detail somewhat difficult. The amount of gold included in the ring brings the value of the sovereign above the scrap value, quoted at £100 by our back-street jewler’s (sic) recent quote for the coin as scrap alone. We don’t have access to a reputable buyer who can value the coin for more than scrap.
This is a beautiful item which also has a basic scrap value
Please do not bid unless you intend to pay immediately
Item will be posted within 24 hours of receipt of payment by paypal
What's Wrong?
We invest a great deal of time, effort, and cost into creating some of the best photographic coin images on the internet. We strongly object when lazy and dishonest people decide to use them without a by your leave or thanks, doing so in competition with us.
Copyright theft is dishonest. We recommend you avoid doing business with dishonest dealers.
This particular eBay seller not only stole one of images of an 1817 George III gold sovereign, he used it in a listing for an Elizabeth II sovereign in a ring mount. Although both have St. George and the dragon on their reverse, the George II coins are easily distinguishable as many of the design details differ, and the legend HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE within a garter forming an outer circle. It's possible he is ignorant of such fine points, or just plain ignorant.
It is always possible, even likely, that sellers who steal photographs do not own a similar coin, and have the intention to defraud potential buyers.
The vendor is not only cheating us by stealing our copyright images, she is fraudulently or ignorantly misleading and deceiving all potential buyers. Gaining pecuniary advantage by deception is the definition of fraud.
He purports to be trustworthy by claiming "Bid with confidence check my feedback", but omits to say that he is dishonest enough to steal other people's hard work.
He also states this image to be a "stock photo" whatever he means by that. At least he is being honest enough to warn potential buyers that this is not a picture of his actual coin, but is still being dishonest in implying that he has the right to use it from some kind of image library.
Price
The seller is asking a BIN price (Buy It Now) of £130 for this coin ring, and has a "Make Offer" button, indicating that he may accept less. This is pretty stupid of him, as we would probably pay at least £130 for it (delivered), and eBay will make about £5 in fees, possibly plus PayPal fees.
He would have got more simply selling it to us, without all the bother of listing it.
A colleague has just pointed out that this is actually a half sovereign, not a sovereign as claimed in its title. To be fair to the vendor, he does call it a half sovereign in the description, but the title fooled me into thinking it was a full sovereign. On the other hand our photo is clearly of a George III full sovereign, and cannot possibly be from a George III half sovereign, which had an entirely different design, so any intelligent reader would be entitled to assume it to be a full sovereign. We often notice discrepancies such as this in eBay listings. If one were to give the benefit of the doubt to the vendors, then one might conclude that they were careless and ignorant, however it is so common, that we believe that in most cases, it is a deliberate attempt to deceive potential buyers which is fraudulent.
Let's just use a metaphorical example; if we were to see a sovereign ring advertised in a dealer's shop window, and went in to buy it, we would not be pleased to find out that it was actually a half sovereign, and we would consider this to be a misleading trade description, and therefore an offence under the Trade Descriptions Act. Amateur sellers on eBay should not be exempt from the law.
Reconsidering the price with the benefit of correct information, we would probably pay about £70 for the ring. The coin will be spoiled numismatically because of the wear and scratches they suffer in wear, and on removal from rings, and it is only possible to guess the weight of the ring mount as the vendor could not be bothered to find out, or it he did, has avoided revealing it.
One other error. He has stated it to be dated 1989, which is also wrong. The 1989 half sovereigns have a special 500th anniversary design on both sides. This vendor needs to have an eye test, to go with the brain function test he also appears to need!
No Reputable Jewellers in Lytham?
There are a few jewellers in Lytham and St. Annes who might like to disagree with the vendor about this? The vendor appear to accuse them of being disreputable.
eBay Guilty of Negligence or Complicity
We will be reporting this example of copyright abuse using our standard Statutory Declaration via the eBay VeRO programme, and wait to see if they chose to action or ignore our report. We look forward to taking legal action against eBay for their negligence and / or complicity if they fail to take down the offending material promptly.
Copyright Notice
Please see our "Copyright" page for further information.
Copyright Infringements Remedies
Our suggested draft remedies for copyright abusers dependent on category - competitors, bloggers, pseudo-expert & advice sites acting as eBay & Google portals, eBay & other auction site sellers.
Other Copyright Abuse
Other Copyright Abuse
Buying Gold Coins & Bars on eBay
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Copyright Thieves on eBay
We already have a page naming and shaming dealers using our images without permission. It's time we did the same for eBay, although if we include them all, this could be a very long page.
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mewnduzt eBay Listing Using Our 1817 George III Gold Sovereign Image
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