The Energon Pub

That sucks, I'd be pissed. I referred one person one time from ebay to the site, when I sold an energon Omega Supreme and they couldn't figure out how to transform him or when some pieces went. I felt guilty like I should have asked permission even to do that. I use the galleries more as a guide to see what I want to buy, and what I don't. On another note, the first pic (optimal optimus) that seller (4hm promotions) is shady as ****. I bought a lot of 4 TRU reissues a couple years ago (Starscream,Skywarp,Prowl,and Inferno) that were supposedly sealed. Here's how they arrived to me:

Starscream (opened, stickers applied sloppily, thank god for reprolabels)
Skywarp (opened, missing a missile)
Inferno (sealed, the only one that was ok)
Prowl (here's the kicker, I never got Prowl, they sent me Blue/Silverstreak)

So I sent a message to them asking for a refund politely and explaining, which they refused. Then, I asked them to replace said items. They said they had no more instock, I guess that's why I ended up with opened goods and a substitution. I threatened to leave negative feedback, and they threatened to leave it for me. When it was all said and done, they offered me 25% off my next purchase through them, which I told they could shove up they're ass (literally).

Gee, I wonder where I've seen these Airrazor pics before....


http://cgi.ebay.com/Airazor-Beast-Wars- ... dZViewItem

Oh yeah, that's right, I found them here!

http://www.seibertron.com/toys/fullsize ... 1&image=16

Another ebay seller cutting off the Seibertron waterwark

Fender Bender wrote:Gee, I wonder where I've seen these Airrazor pics before....


http://cgi.ebay.com/Airazor-Beast-Wars- ... dZViewItem

Oh yeah, that's right, I found them here!

http://www.seibertron.com/toys/fullsize ... 1&image=16

Another ebay seller cutting off the Seibertron waterwark

I shot the seller a email about that. Let's see if he changes it.

If I remember correctly, it violates ebay's policies to list someone else's pictures or list pictures misrepresenting them as what you get. Can you imagine how pissed someone would be if they bought a G1 figure like Jetfire and the pictures showed him to be pristine, then when they got him he was all yellowed? How about someone that doesn't know much about transformers lists pictures of Starscream but you end up getting a Thundercracker? I believe any pictures not of the actual figure for sale have to be disclaimed as such.

i did read about this...it violates the intellectual property law. While Ryan doesn't actually own any rights to the figures, he does own the pictures he took of the figures.

The pictures are indeed carrying a seibertron.com copyright which does mean whoever wished to use a pic no matter how small on their website, auction or even download must ask permission from the copyright owner...which in this case is Ryan

Tjhose people are similar to Theifbaum

At the very least, I think these people can be turned into ebay for policy violation. I have seen this happen before on auctions I have been watching or bidding on. Usually ebay makes them take down the pictures or stops the auction.

Rats! You guys always beat me to the punch. I was just about to say something about taking them to court. That would be a hilarious turn of events given the recent stint on the HMW name. Umm, BTW, I'm not serious about that.

He changed it after my email.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... L:RTQ:US:1

Cyber Bishop wrote:He changed it after my email.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... L:RTQ:US:1

You've got the Touch!










[/dorkage]

Leonardo wrote:[/dorkage]

LMAO!!!

i'm glad he did...cause it could have meant a rather nasty and quite messy lawsuit if Ryan wanted to sue

Exulted Unicron wrote:i'm glad he did...cause it could have meant a rather nasty and quite messy lawsuit if Ryan wanted to sue

I'm not suing anyone over something like this. I see my photos used on auctions all of the time on eBay. There's little that I can do about it, unfortunately.

I appreciate you guys watching my back. I also think it's great if you guys contact users who are removing the watermarks or using my photos to represent their used figures (i.e. G1 Cyclonus for example). That is misleading, but I'm certainly not going to sue anyone over that.

When I started this website, it was with my understanding that people would take images from this website and use them elsewhere. This, in my opinion, most certainly falls well within "fair use". Now, if someone started duplicating my entire galleries on other websites, that would be a problem. But they're not ... so I consider it fair use just like when you guys use the photos from this website in your signatures.

Ok, the whole eBay thing is getting WAY out of hand with people stealing photos from the galleries here. I'm not going to police eBay all day. eBay also doesn't seem to care because they haven't ever responded to my messages about it. I'm also not going to start posting watermarks all over the images on the site because I don't think I should be wasting good photography.

Any suggestions? Are you guys complaining to eBay about this? The more of you that complain about users stealing photographs the better.

I'm open to feasible suggestions if you guys have any.

Well, on some sites I've seen when you move the curser over an image the right mouse button is disabled or when you right click an image a "warning" message appears saying you can't take images from this site. Just a thought.

Jedi Kermit wrote:Well, on some sites I've seen when you move the curser over an image the right mouse button is disabled or when you right click an image a "warning" message appears saying you can't take images from this site. Just a thought.

He could do that, but it still won't prevent them from doing a screen capture.

Could do what TFW did...make people become members to see the items in question. that way you know it was somebody on the board.

Wing Zero Custom wrote:Ah, I remember what Remy of TFkenkon did. A picture of one of his galleries got direct linked in a ebay auction, so Remy replaced it with pictures of very hideous looking fat girls.

That is f***ing awesome.

I've escalated this to a thread on eBay's forums because I'm receiving so many complaints about this issue. To be honest, it's really out of our hands.

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa? ... 71&start=0

Ultimately, one of two things will need to happen ...

1. We work together to continue complaining to eBay about users who steal the photos from this site. Or ...

2. I slap watermarks through all of the items in the photos on this website. All 85,000+ photos.

I'll let you guess which option I won't be doing.

Ebay should be notified about ppl that do that crap... poor ebaying practice

When reporting the listing, what categories need to be chosen in order to let ebay know that the pictured item is not the actual item for sell? Due to ebay's very poor "multiple choice" violation report system I haven't figured out a way to correctly report the sellers yet. So ebay does nothing to enforce the rules.

I know ebay has a standing policy that pictured items are supposed to be the actual item unless otherwise stated and with the permission of the original owner. I tried to look into this more and found that ebay also states that in order to report a picture or item description as being stolen, you must be the owner of that description or picture per:http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/vero-image-text-theft.html.

I thought that maybe we could circumvent this and report anyways by saying that the members of this site technically "own" these pictures, but that only opens up a loop hole for potential picture thieves to join the site then use the photos all they want. The other unfortunate side to this is that sellers stupid enough to leave the site watermark in the corner are actually crediting the source of the material even though they have not asked for permission from the owner, which is still technically an ebay violation.

If anyone has found an effective way to report these listings, I know I'd be happy to help as many others from this sight would be as well. Basically the only thing that we can stick these sellers with, since we aren't the owner of the pictures, is a violation that the seller is not displaying the actual item for sale. Without a proper picture you really are blind buying an item that could be in any condition and are left up to the "honesty" of the seller. Obviously, if they are stealing pictures, they aren't all that honest and if you end up with a figure that you feel was misrepresented the seller can hold your feedback hostage. Granted that isn't always the case but stuff like that happens far more than it should, and I read it in potential buyer and seller's feedbacks all the time.