When it comes to celebrity merch, such as autographed photos, dupe photos, celebrity t-shirts etc., EBAY is probably THE BIGGEST INTERNET WEBSITE.
Problems? When people smell money to be made, things can stink.
This includes:
People selling shoddy, unauthorized shirts, clocks, mousepads and buttons with a celebrity's image on it.
People selling dupe photos that fade or turn yellow, or offer unflattering images the celebrity detests...and sighs over when people buy this crap and send it in for autographs.
People making a profit by unauthorized REPRINTING of an autographed photo a celebrity graciously GAVE them...or, worse, FORGING the autograph.
Two examples:
You might think: "Oh, dear, it's the "wild wild Internet," nothing can be done.
No, something can be done. It's easy. I do it all the time. It's a TAKEDOWN.
When a website NOT in Russia does something illegal, DMCA laws dictate that a requested TAKEDOWN must be honored.
I'm a VERO rep for a dozen celebrity friends of mine. VERO means "Verified Rights Owner."
They send me a letter, which I send to EBAY, that says in essence, "Ron Smith is authorized to be my VERO rep. If he sends you an auction number to be removed as an "intellectual property" violation, honor the request. It's legit.
After that, I simply copy and paste the auction number, email it, and ZAP. It's gone. A seller persists? Seller is gone.
It's that simple.
KEITH URBAN, for example, could be making $5 or $10 per shirt for a favorite charity. What message does it send, that somebody UNLICENSED, can just go into the KEITH URBAN business (and also trade on the intellectual property of hundreds of others) and keep the money?
Some stars, and sellers, simply don't know what "intellectual property" means.
In law, it means that a person OWNS the right to their name and face. It can't be used without permission and LICENSING.
While a photographer can snap a picture of a celebrity and sell it to a magazine, the photographer can NOT sell that image to a noodle factory and have it appear on a box of noodles. That's "right of publicity" or "intellectual property" law.
If you sell the photo to a magazine, it's "publicity." It's allowed. A person is famous and in public.
If the photo appears on a t-shirt, or is copied for sale on eBay, it's "product" and MUST BE LICENSED or it can be REMOVED by request.
Yes, simple request, not by expensive legal documents and a $100 an hour lawyer. By a simple DMCA form that takes a minute to fill out. By a simple auction number emailed to eBay's VERO department.
I know. I've done it a thousand times on behalf of my celebrity friends. And, the case of photos I've taken of celebrities that were being duped and sold, and unauthorized ebook sales, for myself.
One celeb I know shrugged and said, "Oh, that's very enterprising. Let him sell my image. What do I care?"
Right, what DO you care? Do you know this seller? Do you know what he's doing with the money? Do you care that the shirt might fade or fall apart and people think YOU have authorized this shoddy item?
When eBay sellers make $50 or $100 off a forged autographed photo, or sell TEN reprint photos of a star every week ($129.00), this isn't so penny-ante anymore. Why reward parasites and criminals?
Why don't ALL celebrities have a VERO rep? I have no idea. They don't know there's a problem? Don't know there's a solution?
They don't know that...THEY CAN MAKE MONEY FOR THEIR FAVORITE CHARITY via EBAY?
Yes, it's true.
Instead of removing an auction, I can tell the dealer: "You can sell that "reprint" autographed photo, but instead of YOU pocketing the $12.95 for yourself, give half to..."
Whatever charity the celebrity wants. The ad will state "50% of the auction sale goes to Wounded Warrior Fund" (or whatever) AND, eBay will automatically DEDUCT that money, because hundreds and hundreds of charities are signed up for direct payments!
For more information on EBAY CHARITY (https://www.charity.ebay.com) go here:
EBAY CHARITY LINK You can also find a link for more information on the VERO program:
I am a "volunteer" VERO rep. It doesn't take for than a few minutes a week. I spend more time as a volunteer for the New York Public Library, for example. A lot of people volunteer for a favorite cause. Some people feed pigeons in the park. Some read to the blind. The important thing is to avoid crapathy, and to get involved.
There are companies such as Web Sheriff, Grayzone, Digimarc, etc. that charge copyright and intellectual property rights owners for a DMCA. Unfortunately, while these companies do have "bots" and do comb not just eBay but blogs and forums, it's for a price. Some book companies, for example, will ONLY ask that their latest books be protected. It's too costly, they feel, to ask an unpaid intern, or a volunteer, to make sure ALL their books are protected. They don't understand how EASY it is to stop the casual bootlegging on EBAY, the most famous and popular Internet site.
Not everyone knows about the sneaky download torrents, the hidden forums or the blogs. But too often, people who type in a book title on EBAY see what looks like a wonderful, legitimate bargain. Why, lookie lookie, EVERY Stephen King book for barely the price of a paperback:
What's the excuse? Stephen King doesn't need the money?
Mom and Pop bookstores do. Libraries need people to come in and borrow books the RIGHT way. Libraries support all kinds of obscure and scholarly authors because people walk in to borrow a Stephen King book. People who bought King's books and need to raise some extra cash by selling them, shouldn't have their sales thwarted because a few craven parasites in Sri Lanka are offering bootlegs.
Why doesn't EBAY remove the bootlegs? Because "they are just a venue." They are not obligated to ask their uploaders for authorization. They rely on the VERO program, and on VERO reps (including ME) to let them know what's legal and what isn't.
This is why YOU might be saved from wasting your money on a fake Gucci bag on eBAY, as well as a fake autograph of a movie star. A VERO rep is looking out for YOU.
Lastly, some people don't even know there's a "secret" area of eBAY for pornography. Yes, some sellers try to sell porn right out in the open, and some "hobbyists" dutifully use the "report item" link on an eBay ad to make sure the material is taken down. But a lot of porn IS perfectly allowable by eBay as long as it's in their "adult section" which requires credit card verification for viewing.
Heh heh. You want to see? If you're an eBay member and already using a credit card to buy or sell, go ahead:
"Here Be Porn" Did you notice that on eBay's opening page there's a drop-down menu for categories you can browse? The ADULT section is part of the "everything else" category.
It's in THIS category that a lot of sellers degrade women by offering Photoshop fakes...sold as REAL. Would it surprise you to learn that the seller of the FAKE images below is a WOMAN? Yes, it's not just misogynistic, twisted MALES you abuse women. Patricia, in New Jersey, LOVES to get $3.29 per dupe photo and doesn't care that she's maligning celebrities, or that her bidders could be stalkers gullible enough to not only buy the images but then go seek out the "easy" stars who pose so enticingly.
No, Britney Spears does NOT wander around naked. I've "censored" the images here, but the images are FULLY VISIBLE in the ad. Which also might have you wondering...if a guy can SEE the image in the ad, why the HELL would he spend $3.29 and postage to own it? Why not just save it to the desktop and save money?
The sellers aren't even clever enough to create these images. They download them off seedy sites in the "Dark Web" or obscure forums. Scarlett Johansson recently complained that there's no way to stop the abusive "celebrity jihad" of pranksters and misogynists on the Internet. She's partially correct. Just as with drugs, guns and prostitution, if people want to buy, they will find a place to buy. But it should take a lot of searching. It shouldn't be EASY on EBAY.
EBAY is not where the casual book buyer encounters a Kindle bootlegger that seems legit.
EBAY is not where greedheads can make copies of a celebrity's image and laugh all the way to the bank.
EBAY understands this but doesn't feel obligated to do much unless ASKED. In other words, unless a VERO rep is monitoring the site and contacts them with the auction number.
Here's a double whammy for you...TWO SELLERS of obscene forged Scarlett Johansson image:
Should Scarlett Johansson be protecting herself from a possible stalker who sees these images and thinks she is a slut to be stalked?
Should Scarlett Johansson take a stand and NOT let a misogynistic parasite make money by pimping a faked and forged image of her?
Well, I do know managers and agents who smugly shrug, "EH, let the buyer beware. A buyer stupid enough to believe that crap and buy it, deserves to be taken! Harrr!" Yeah? And the weasel who sold it deserves the money?
The only way the bad guys (AND bad women) on eBay continue to make money off Photoshop porn fakes, is because they are allowed. Who can call up Scarlett Johansson or Julia Roberts? If they have a Twitter account that says "THE REAL" and it IS real, thousands are Tweeting them every day and most of it goes unread. Anyone managing to find a phone number for an agent or manager will get a big FUCK YOU because the call doesn't involve MONEY or a DEAL of some kind.
Similarly, bootlegs of books, films or music often remain on eBay because the book companies don't have a "report piracy" link on their sites, or choose to ignore tips they get because they don't want to spend the money by contacting Web Sheriff, and don't have enough sense to use an intern OR to accept the kind offer of a volunteer activist. How insane does it get? Well, I told the folks at Doubleday-Penguin-Random House-Dell that BEING an author published by DOUBLEDAY, I'd be glad to help out...and I got a not so polite request to mind my own business. Even if my business would be to make sure that IF I get another book published by them, I'd get the best advance and NOT be told "sorry, piracy is cutting into sales and we also have to pay millions to Stephen King and J.K. Rowling and pudgy E.L. James..."
Crapathy is the enemy here, and it prevents money going to charity (by eBay sellers giving a cut to worthy causes instead of rewarding their own thievery). It encourages Internet abuse. It sanctions Photoshop fakes, copies of photos stolen from a celebrity's computer or photos of a "waldrobe malfunction" used for a snickering profit. It rewards forgers and lowlife parasites.
Unfortunately, I only represent about a dozen well known celebs, and word gets around who to avoid. Ebay does suspend sellers after multiple VERO stoppages, but it does REQUIRE multiple VERO stoppages, which means that I need a few more top stars on my list (FREE) or a few top law firms and management agencies to take the problem seriously enough to have an intern scan eBay once a week, or allow designated fans to have an email where they can send in the auction numbers of frauds they've found.
EBAY Photoshop sellers know no shame. Heather Locklear, in lockdown, was being victimized on eBay, and still is:
The late Carrie Fisher? Well, aside from the gangbang fakes on teen Emma Watson, she's STILL the most likely victim of gleeful porn fake abuse:
The good news? The easiest place to find these images and buy them is EBAY and EBAY can and does stop them.
More good news? I know from 20 years experience on EBAY, that the women I represent are NOT victimized anymore. Once I began takedowns, the number of violations shrank to the point where I hardly spend more than a few minutes a month checking those on my list, and I only send in one or two DMCA's, if any. The system WORKS.
Even more good news: There is no "down" side to takedowns. The sellers are wrong. What they do is illegal. They have no defense. The seller must cease and desist or be suspended. If a celebrity allows dupe photos or buttons or whatever, but requests half the money go to charity, it goes to charity or the items can't be listed.
The bad news: the list of fameous women being victimized by Photoshop fakes is long. So is the list of authors whose royalties are being snatched by eBay bootleggers who sell dupe ePub and Kindle downloads. However:
These problems can be solved.
All it takes are a few people who care.
Agents, managers and celebs can contact me for help or more information, all free. VeRO works for both living performers AND their estates. You can contact me at: LIZABETHSCOTT at USA.COM.
THAT'S LIZABETH. Leave off the first e for eBAY.
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