Using Images from Websites

Frequently, sellers on eBay swipe images from various websites in an attempt to spiffy up their listings. Some sellers seem to think that it is better to use one of these images instead of an image of what is actually up for sale. I have never understood why some people think it is better to use a generic borrowed image instead of an image representing what is being sold, but then I'm not the type of person who takes shortcuts. I usually ignore such listings, even when the image is an image of a book from one of my cover art galleries.

The only time that I request the seller to remove the image is when the seller chooses a certain image that is connected solely to me. The Nancy Drew image that is currently used in this blog, also pictured at the top of this post, seems to be the favorite one that sellers like to swipe from my series book site. I greatly dislike it when this particular image is chosen, simply because some buyers will assume that I am the person who has listed the auction. I never use any of my website images in any of my listings. I have only used this image in this blog, on my website in the Nancy Drew section, and currently on my eBay "My World" page.

Months ago, I changed the name of this image so that it would not show up so high in in the Google Images search. Unfortunately, someone has swiped the image for their site, and their copy of my image is now high in the search results. This is undoubtedly why the image is getting swiped again for eBay auctions. It is frustrating.

I have another website which is devoted to a certain version of Zorro. There is an image prominently pictured on that site which is a collage, and bootleggers decided to use it on copies of their bootleg discs. At a result, additional bootleggers decided to use the image to sell their copies of the bootlegs. It is like the bootleggers thought that my image was an official image for the series. So what happened is that the image was used as the picture on an eBay listing. I was unaware until someone contacted me to ask whether I was the person selling the discs. This person thought that because my image was in the listing that I was the seller, or at the very least that I had endorsed the listing.

In some ways, the situation was funny because the image had taken on a life of its own. I could not help but find it amusing in that respect. However, the situation made me very uncomfortable because some people were assuming that I was the seller. I was not happy that my reputation could be damaged by people buying from a bootlegger and thinking that I was the seller. What if the buyer ended up not pleased with the discs and thought that I had ripped them off? This was not good. My solution was to place a message on my website under the collage stating that the collage was used on bootleg listings and that I had nothing to do with it. I have left that message there ever since, and it is rather tacky, but the bootleggers don't use the image anymore. They don't like my message identifying any listing with that image as a bootleg!

So to go back to the Nancy Drew collage . . . if you see it in a listing, I have nothing to do with it!