Everyday I read a lot of hobby blogs. I just checked out one of the best ones, Porter’s Prospect Report, and saw that he wrote a post about Auctiva. Many people use Auctiva to make their eBay listings look better and display other items they have for sale. Some people use Auctiva because of the photo security that you usually see when you right click on the image within their listing. If you list your auction through Auctiva and someone tries to steal the image in your auction they will get a message displayed to them saying you cannot download the image. What I want to tell you is that people can still steal your pictures even if you use Auctiva. I won’t say exactly, but there is a certain button on the keyword scammers can use to steal the image. Why would they want to steal the image? Just so they can use it for their own auction and scam someone else. In my opinion I would mark my photos in a special way that you could easily prove someone stole your photos. This happens a lot within the sports card category for some reason.
Filed under: Scams
I have noticed that a very large number of auctiva users are using this service to easily steal others pictures and/or descriptions. I have never used auctiva but my understanding is that it allows you to drag and drop pictures from anywhere on the web, which makes it very easy to copy other sellers’ pictures. I’ve had this happen to several of my pictures which did have my name and copyright across them, and its nerve racking to try and track the online address the picture is uploaded at only to have a “this picture is copyright protected by auctiva”
Thankfully auctiva has been very responsive and quick to remove my images once I report them and provide all my information. IMO auctiva should only allow its users to drag and drop from their own computers. I know it still does not eliminate picture stealers but it does prevent direct copying via auctiva.
There are many ways to get around auctiva’s “copyright” prompt. You can use that special keyboard function, view page source, etc
It is not a scam to steal pictures and use them publicly its called copyright infringement.