Caution when inserting photos! Copiers!!

[MarioL]

look at this auction,it´s one from Akira´s collection

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=280190058377

and here
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=190531

[W Petz]

Jim,

I just received my answer from Ebay saying I should contact the police and have them file a report furnishing them a link to ebay so they can cooperate in the police investigation....Now how the hell am I suppose to file a local police report when I'm overseas with the US Army in Rotterdam, Holland. The Dutch Police would laugh at me.....Ebay knows I'm overseas because I had to give them my mailing address.

Simon, you are right, even marking the photo may not help if he uses Photo Shop. I found that he had sold one copy of one of my photos for $13.00 (auction 280182040134)!!!! Figure out his profit margin, actual costs, far less than a dollar, profit: over $ 12. He does these in packets of 30 to 50 photos. With about 20 pages of these photos just add it up! I have written to two recent purchasers of unauthorized copies of my photos and will see what they say. I have also noted that some buyers were not satisfied with what they got. Ebay has been very lame about this as they profit whether it is legal or illegal! Will see what happens!

PzV

[W Petz]

I sent a PM to Akira who is a Moderator on this forum asking him to generate a investigation to see if this character may be a WAF Member because he sure has stolen alot of images here. Akira may now have a personal interest on trying to track this fraudster and thief down. Bill

I also just found out who this guy is


Stephen Toth
44 Central Street
Farmington, NH 03835
United States

look at this auction,it´s one from Akira´s collection

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=280190058377

and here
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=190531

[Adrian Stevenson]

I am very angry about this too.

I will do all I can to find out his possible forum ID.

It seems all his current E Bay listings have been pulled.

Cheers, Ade.

[Eric JB]

Gentlemen,

Very bad news indeed !
When he is a waf-member, he should be gone away forever !

yours
Eric-Jan

[i.spring]

this guys is seriesly bad. i just checked his linked website from the links given http://www.auctiva.com/stores/viewst...&op=0&siteid=0
and i see all the great colorised photos that were done in this forum for fun. Also i see atleast one color slide shot from daves collection
It just sadly proves one thing, if someone wants to post a good picture from their private collections, they might have to do what i do, boobie trap the images with water marks. so these guys cant bootleg them and sell them the next day.
And there are other guys doing this stuff all the time. there is one peter-ewbank i think, who had sold repoductions of some of akiras great photos in the past and others.
This "crap" just really saps the fun and excitement for real photo collectors
Ian

[Ron C.]

This is outright fraud and theft. Check this one out
http://cgi.ebay.com/WW2-German-Solda...QQcmdZViewItem

You can even see where the ba*****d has photoshopped the watermark.

This photo is one that I colorized and posted on the last page of this thread 12/21/07. It is the only place I ever posted it. So it had to be lifted from this forum.

Ron
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...ad.php?t=97822

P.S. I just checked the web-site in Ian's reply above this one. I found all 4 of the ones I colorized and posted on the last page of the above thread.....apparently he lifted all 4. I have never posted anything outside of this forum.

[R MICHAEL]

if his auctions were pulled the seller did it himself as the links are still active. From my understanding when ebay pulls an auction the number and or link is no longer an active one.

So looks like he may go under cover

[BlackWolf3945]

Dang, this SOB is still at it.

I busted him early last year for selling one of my photos as well as stuff that he grabbed from an acquaintance's gallery on Airliners.net.

If only New Hampshire were a bit closer...


Fade to Black...

[SurvivingPanzer]

This guy is a total scumbag.

However, I am not sure that legal action is possible against him. I am only a law student but I am sure there are some lawyers on here that confirm what I am about to say.

I dont think that the copyright to these pictures are owned by any of us (the colorized pics are an expection if the C has lapsed since you have done significant creative work to it). The original copyright to every single photo of WWII that has not been modified (and some cases even then) should belong to the photographer that took it. This is true regardless of whether you own the only print of the item in existence or if you own the original negative. Eg, when you purchase a CD you own the CD but not the copyright, and the copyright alone grants you the exclusive right to reproduce the item. Signals Corps photos likely belong to the US as they were in essence works for hire. TR press photos the German gov, and news photos taken by individual photographers would belong to either the photographer or the newspaper, depending if there was a work for hire contract or not, which I am not going to explain right now.

Prior to the late 70's copyright holders had to re-register their C every few years (I think 20) otherwise it would lapse into the public domain. For example several movies that were created prior to the laws changing in the late 70's lapsed into the public domain and are now fodder for the dollar bin at your local walmart. As many of the C holders of the pictures we collect are deceased, some since the war, and even more are likely to have renewed the copyright on their photos in the years since, I am willing to bet that TR photos that are not taken by official Nazi party photographers (press photos) are 95% in the Public Domain. And that 5% is being extremely generous. It is unlikely that any soldier in the German army would be concentrating on registering their photographs for C protection when they arrived home.

Even though these photos were taken and are from Germany it is my belief that since they are being sold in the US that US copyright law is the governing force. Perhaps a member of the legal community with experience in international law can confirm this.

The following MIGHT be copyrighted:
1. Studio photographs
2. TR press photos - including propaganda photos, posters, photos taken by the TR Signal corps.
3. Photos taken by professional photographers - newspaper and magazine correspondents

The following are VERY LIKELY in the Public Domain:
1. Photos taken by an individual soldier

Items in which we as the collector own the copyright:
1. Anything in which we have a written agreement between the original photographer and ourselves transfering the rights.

Fraud - I believe you need to prove intent and as he is selling these as repros I think this will be hard to do.

Theft - A more interesting arguement I am unsure of the results of this. Not my field.

[PzV]

pirated photos

Hello Surviving Panzer,

good points but this person has to be stopped, as I mentioned he made as much as $13 for one single photo of which I had the work to find! Once again his name and address is:

Stephen Toth
44 Central Street
Farmington, NH 03835

By German law a copyright runs out after 50 years, I have looked into this as I recently got a large amount of photos/negatives from an old photo studio in Schwetzingen, Germany. After that, the owner has the rights. I personally don't mind loaning my photos out for historical research and/or publications but I hate to see these pirated like this and apparently they have even used Photo Shop to take out the water marks. Let us keep our eyes open on this!

PzV

[Hank C.]

He doesn't seem to have anything for sale at the moment at the linked site...he must be taking some flak...

best
Hank

[Akira Takiguchi]

As I stated in the past, copyright has nothing to do with this problem.
Photographs were underprotected in early days (not so today) and those that once lost protection of copyright law remain unprotected.
We ourselves can safely post scans of period photographs because copyright has expired.
Still we collectors have rights of ownership to control publication (possibly for a fee) of the photographs as we wish under contract with the publishers.

The real problem is that: when anyone can join WAF and enjoy the great collections of our friends for free, this bastard charges significant amount of money compared to what is provided for it. Unethical! If I find him among the ranks, I'll certainly kick him out.

Despite of those who have no ethics to follow, I will keep posting my images at the same size and with the same type of watermarks (with as much information as possible). Otherwise the primary purpose or the raison d'être of this forum, to exchange information with other collectors and researchers to learn about the history, will gradually die.

At this oppotunity I would like to repeat my gratitude to all the great contributers. Thank you very much for making this forum an unparalleled being!

[Akira Takiguchi]

By the way, the funniest thing that happened with me recently was: a photo dealer (long time friend) e-mailed me a few new acquisitions for me. One of them was a reproduction of my scan that was posted on WAF. The paper was marked LEONAR. Fake photographs are everywhere.

[PzV]

Akira, thanks and it appears that our e-mails and complaints to Ebay or the vendor have paid off- he no longer appears to be selling on Ebay. We all must keep our eyes open as apparently this is not the first time that this person has done this.

best regards

PzV