Copyright Theft of Coin Images
Perhaps we should be flattered by the number of people including dealers who continually infringe our IP (Intellectual Property) rights by using our copyright images, but we do not find it amusing, and will take legal action against any copyright thieves.
Gold Coins For Sale GoldCoinSale.Net Image Theft
Gold Coins For Sale GoldCoinSale.Net, USA are just one of the many dishonest gold & coin dealer websites worldwide who commit copyright theft by using our copyright images without our permission.
On their Home page, titled "GoldCoinsForSale" http://goldcoinssale.net/, which we reproduce here, they are clearly using at least 2 of our high quality gold coin images, and we are still checking the remainder, many of the linked pages also contain more of our photographs.
Their "World Coins", "Belgium Leopold 20 Franc Gold Coin", and "British Sovereign Gold Coins" pages also contain our images.
Gold Coins For Sale GoldCoinSale.Net About Us Page
There isn't one!
Gold Coins For Sale GoldCoinSale.Net Home Page
This contains links to 15 other pages, making a total of 16 pages on this site. Of these, 4 pages including the index page use our images. 25% of the website using our pictures.
In addition, there are a few photos which have been edited, and may be based on our originals, we are still researching this.
We did notice a Krugerrand photograph which we recognise as being stolen from one of our respected London competitors. From this, we guess that all the photographs on the website may have been externally sourced, probably without the copyright holders permission.
Ignorance?
Although in law, ignorance is no defence, Gold Coins For Sale GoldCoinSale.Net has seen fit to place a copyright notice "Copyright © 2009 Gold Coins for Sale" on all of its web pages, thereby demonstrating, or pretending a knowledge of copyright law, and also claiming ownership of Intellectual Property Rights which it does not own. We consider this to be not just "borrowing" images, or using them without the owners consent, but as image theft. All theft is dishonest. It is also illegal.
What's Wrong?
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First, and most obvious. Gold Coins For Sale GoldCoinSale.Net have taken and used our copyright images without our consent or prior knowledge. This is a clear breach of our Intellectual Property Rights. We call it image theft, and it is dishonest. It is also unprofessional.
If the company is an important well established bullion dealer, then surely it could afford to take its own photographs, buy them from an image library, or commission them from a professional photographer. Instead it appear to have chosen to steal our pictures. Apart from exposing them as cheapskates, it is unfair competition.
- Gold Coins For Sale GoldCoinSale.Net pretends to have some degree of expertise about gold coins and investment, which we feel certain it does not possess.
Opportunist?
None of the pages of Gold Coins For Sale GoldCoinSale.Net's website directly offer to buy or sell any coins, instead it merely lists eBay items for sale under the appropriate category. Apart from giving a small amount of "advice", this website does nothing that any buyer could not do for themselves.
This begs the question "Why, and what is the purpose of the site?". We believe the sole use and purpose of the site is to act as an advertising medium for eBay, presumably drawing some revenue from eBay either on a "Pay Per Click", or some commission or introductory fee basis.
The site is almost a complete waste of time and space. It wastes viewers time by having to weed through search engine results to distinguish actual sites run by real dealers or auctioneers, and intermediaries such as "GoldCoinSale.Net".
This means the site is effectively competing with us, as the passive supplier of high quality content. We strongly believe this is unfair.
Who Owns GoldCoinSale.Net?
GoldCoinSale.Net is one of those websites which reveals no details of its owner, and there is no sitemap or other page which gives this information. We believe this is poor practice. On any reasonable website there should be "About Us", and / or "Contact" pages, and this should not just be one-way contact, but should inform the user who owns and operates the site, and how they may be contacted.
Domain Lookup
Doing a simple Domain Lookup threw up the following, rather limited, and unsatisfactory information:
ICANN Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Created: 2009-06-12
Expires: 2010-06-12
Updated: 2009-06-12
Registrar Status: clientTransferProhibited
Name Server: NS1.SOFTLAYER.COM (has 30,632 domains)
Name Server: NS2.SOFTLAYER.COM (has 30,632 domains)
Whois Server: whois.enom.com
Server Data
Server Type: Apache/2.2.11 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8e-fips-rhel5 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635
IP Address: 74.86.120.113 Whois | Reverse-IP | Ping | DNS Lookup | Traceroute
IP Location - Texas - Dallas - Softlayer Technologies Inc
Registration Service Provided By: NameCheap.com
Contact:
Visit: http://www.namecheap.com/
Domain name: goldcoinssale.net
Registrant Contact:
WhoisGuard
WhoisGuard Protected ()
Fax:
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd. #110 - 732
Westchester, CA 90045
US
Administrative Contact:
WhoisGuard
WhoisGuard Protected ()
+1.6613102107
Fax: +1.6613102107
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd. #110 - 732
Westchester, CA 90045
US
Technical Contact:
WhoisGuard
WhoisGuard Protected ()
+1.6613102107
Fax: +1.6613102107
8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd. #110 - 732
Westchester, CA 90045
US
Sounds like the owner want to remain anonymous for reasons best known to himself!
Our Advice
Avoid this pretentious and dishonest web site, along with any others like it.
Don't take any notice of "expert" advice offered by anonymous authors. If the author can not or will not publish his name alongside his work, it is fair to assume the advice is suspect at best.
We also do not have a high opinion of eBay paying website operators such as Gold Coins For Sale GoldCoinSale.Net to feed customers its way in preference, and to the cost of, real, expert, and genuine, professional coin dealers.
Other Copyright Abuse
Other Web Sites
All comments about copyright also cover content of all our other websites including, but not limited to:-
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Gold Coins For Sale GoldCoinSale.Net Krugerrands Page
Our Images
Our Images
Our 1877 Belgian Gold 20 Francs of Leopold II Obverse Photograph
Reverse of Our 1827 George IV Gold Sovereign
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