Nice and safe eBay.
ronald
My Story -
Not long ago, on my birthday (June 2004) I came home after a pleasant day in
the city to find a message from R---- on my telephone answering machine. He
said that he was a fan of my paintings and he had just seen some of my
paintings for sale on ebay, under another artist's name! I had never been on
ebay before, but I wasted no time checking it out. What I found was that
eBay Inc. seller "MikeK30" is selling work by "Outsider" artist Geraldine
Klemmer, and it is labeled as "original art". But it is not original art, it
is reproduced from copyrighted images belonging to many other artists,
including me. (Ms. Klemmer's promotional materials mention that she is
talented in "many styles.")
The work was advertised as original paintings, acrylic on canvas. The
brushwork and colors are a messy and incompetent echo of the original
paintings, but the underlying structure of the image is an exact duplicate,
at 50% scale. My guess: she downloaded a copy of the image from the web,
printed it on canvas, and did a quick paint-by-numbers kind of thing over
the surface.
Some people have asked me why, since I have long since sold the originals,
it matters if some yokel in Texas is copying my paintings.
I make my living as an artist, and my reputation as an honest businessperson
is as important as my reputation for high quality work. When my clients see
work that looks almost identical (at least to them) to paintings they have
purchased from me, paintings they thought were one of a kind, and those
copy-cat paintings are selling for a fraction of the price they paid me,
those clients feel cheated. This impugns my reputation, lowers the value of
my work, and makes it difficult for me to make future sales. Which adversely
affects my already faint income.
And then there's the issue of stealing. It just burns me up to think of all
the time and effort I took to come up with those images. I walked all over
town, took lots of photos, revisited sites so that I could be there when the
light was just right, collaged and edited multiple photos to compose the
images in such a way that they were pleasing to the eye, as well as
descriptive of my city. THEN I started the painting. All the con-artist did
was steal that beautiful image and copy it. Not use it as inspiration, not
interpret it - copy it, as exactly as her feeble skills could manage.
From what I could tell, based on the public records on eBay, this con-artist
has sold at least 483 works, at $40 to $80 each, for approximately $19,000
to $38,000 worth of plagiarized art. Some of the buyers of this plagiarized
art have purchased up to 55 pieces, and it's my guess that this work is
being resold around the country in little boutique gift store galleries as
"original art by Texas painter, Geraldine Klemmer."
I attempted to remedy this situation by contacting ebay, but so far I have
not been successful at getting through to them. When I posted messages to
their forums (Community Help boards, Member Violations, Fraudulent Activity,
Customer Support) I received quick admonishments from the forum moderators
that informed me that I was using the forum inappropriately. But no one from
ebay has answered my requests for help in dealing the fact that one of their
members is violating my (and other artists) copyrights as well as defrauding
ebay customers who think they have purchased original art. They do not have
a listed phone number, and calling 411 is no help. It has been three days
now, and still they do not address this issue at all. Meanwhile, this person
is free to sell more fake art.
Luckily, I do have other avenues for pursuing this problem, and I'm doing
just that.
So far, we have identified the work of five artists (multiple works per
artist) and are actively searching for the others who have been ripped off.
This particular scammer tends to rip off realist art, particularly
cityscapes, landscapes, and still life (almost no figurative work.) You can
email me if you want me to check your site for work that matches the
scammer's catalog.
July 1, 2004 - I found out about eBay's VeRO program (go to this page and
follow the instructions for filing a report) and the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (aka the DMCA) from a lawyer. I should have been able to
easily access this information from eBay, but I guess they don't want to
encourage people like me from doing anything that will slow their sales.
This is what the lawyer had to say about it:
"In the VeRO program, you can report eBay auctions where you believe your IP
is being infringed. I have done so many times (for my clients), and eBay has
been very responsive in taking down these auctions. You can ask eBay to do
the same for your copyrighted image which is being infringed.
Also, eBay has a DMCA Registered Agent. eBay is an online service provider,
and is required to have an DMCA agent, who is required to take down
infringing materials eBay is aware of.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (aka the DMCA) says that eBay needs to
have this process in place in order to be immune from prosecution for
copyright infringement when third party posters put infringing stuff on
eBay. Through the VeRO program, which is eBay's DMCA compliance program, you
send eBay a notice certifying that you're the copyright owner of works that
are being infringed, and they take the material down and send a notice to
the person posting the work."
I also got some new links to useful (copyright protection) websites for
artists - I put them up at right.
July 3, 2004
I received some helpful tips for the people who keep wondering how to
restrict access to copyrighted images (see box at right) from Miyoji
Productions.
The investigation is still progressing, but I'm sorry I can't share any more
news right now.
July 15, 2004
This has been an education, and here's what I've learned so far:
If you are an artist and you have been victimized by an eBay con-artist who
has plagiarized your work, the first step is to file a report with eBay's
VeRO program (see the July 1 entry on how to do that.) Filing this report
officially notifies eBay of the specific items, and seller that you are
accusing of fraud. This is the only way they will accept this information.
eBay won't do a whole lot in response to your report. If you're lucky,
they'll remove the item from sale (no guarantees, though.) This is not much
help if the item has already sold. And they won't do anything about the
seller, who is free to make more fraudulent sales. This means you have to
keep an eye on this seller and file a new report every time they make a
fraudulent sale.
eBay has been sued many times in the last 4 years over the issue of
facilitating copyright infringement. Just try the words "eBay copyright
infringement lawsuit" in a google search and see what you come up with...
many articles that begin, "eBay wins copyright infringement lawsuit." The
Digital Millennium Copyright Act actually offers protection to eBay (and by
extension, to con-artists) but not much to creative folks. Someday maybe
there will be a critical mass of artists who will be able to change that
dynamic. We can hasten that time by making our voices heard on this issue.
And we can pursue the con-artists directly, through criminal and civil
means.
The first barrier to pursuing the con-artist is identifying them, and I
think this is where eBay bears the greatest responsibilty. By using their
"privacy policy" to protect the identity of eBay sellers, even when eBay has
received repeated VeRO (Verified Rights Owner's Program) notices of claimed
infringement against a particular seller, eBay is providing a Black Market
area on the internet, that allows criminals and thieves the freedom to
commit fraud and piracy without consequences.
But, assuming you can identify the real name and address of the seller (a
private investigator can usually do it.) Your second step is to initiate
civil and criminal measures against the seller. Organize all of the
documentation (records of your copyrighted items, with dates, photos, etc.
Records of your sales. Records of your contact with eBay and the seller.) Go
to your local Volunteer Lawyers For the Arts to get legal counsel. If the
seller is in a different state than you, notify the FBI. Notify the Better
Business Bureau for the state/city where the seller is located. Notify the
District Attorney for the state/county where the seller is located. File
reports with the consumer fraud sites on the internet. Notify all of the
gallery and craft outlets in the community where the seller is located, as
well as any professional organizations the seller may belong to. Contact any
consumer protection media in your area (many newspapers and television
stations have a reporter assigned to this kind of story.)
July 24, 2004
The lawsuit is still in progress, but there's nothing I can say about it
here, at least for now. I added many new links to the side bar at right, and
here's a fascinating article about PayPal and eBay's attack on a non-profit
organization, the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee.
September 24, 2004 (Friday)
A week or so ago, a reporter from MSNBC called to interview me about eBay
and art fraud. We had an interesting talk and then I immediately forgot
about it. A few days ago, there was a huge spike in traffic to my web site.
At first I thought it was related to the Open Studios catalog listing, but
the weird part was, most of the hits were from google searches of the
phrase, "artist anna conti." Eventually it dawned on me that a news story
somewhere must have used that phrase. I found the story (eBay fights its
toughest legal battle - Tiffany lawsuit puts 'hands off' approach to the
test) and reporter Bob Sullivan got it all right. I'm definitely rooting for
Tiffany to succeed where so many others have tried and failed - to make eBay
take more responsibility for the Black Market they promote and profit from.
See Also: MSNBC's section on "Online Auctions - Fads, Scams, and
Temptations."
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