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After a long run of my auctions being hijacked by scammers I know I need to do something to protect my photographs from theft and subsequent re-use by those hell-bent on deceit. I have noticed that many people have their auction number as a watermark on the pictures they use but short of setting up the auction minus pictures (a scheduled auction) and adding them after an auction number has been generated I can't see how to do it....
Am I being totally stupid here or is there an obvious way that I am missing..? It's obviously a great way to thwart the scammers but I have scoured eBay and can't see a way to do it other than how I said...somebody tell me different!!!!! :doh:
Or maybe there's a way to make the pictures 'un-liftable'.....I need answers because this is doing my head in..for the 3rd time this week I have had my last auction copied..and while eBay are swift in removing these violations they don't seem to offer any workable solutions to this type of fraud.
I need to protect myself and my customers..as we all do!!
WienJenny, cheeeese, this eby auction thing can really be nasty! I never thought about all the weird things that have happened to you and some others. 
There is a way of making it impossible to right click a picture, and I remember that there must be a thread here somewhere, but cannot dig it up. 
From what I remember, people who know their way around on a PC can still do that.
For watermarking my photo shop has a possibility to type anything on the picture.
I´ve been pondering, how I would do it if I´d sell on ebay: I guess I would not bother with the technical stuff, because 99% of the users worldwide are cleverer than me and would go past that in an instant.
Watermarking the background, which would look nice I guess is useless, because the background can be taken away by photoshop or any other program.
I guess, typing your name across the picture somewhere on the bottom (but still reaching over the teddy) is the most effective way. And you can do that before you have the auction number. And it sort of brand marks your picture, because the number can not be connected to you. At least not after 3 months or so.
But I guess you´ll have to face the fact, that the pix of your beautiful teddies can still be hijacket. Some people just know too many possibilities to steal, rob and betray *sigh*
I hope, that your bad experiences are something from the past!
Good luck
Gaby 
It is an awful world, it is almost impossible to keep ahead of all the scammers and know what they are going to do next. I think as Ellen said to put up your listing, but maybe schedule it to come on at a certain time (so it hasn't gone live yet). Then before it goes live, edit the pictures and save again, then when your auction goes live it will have the new pictures with the auction number (which you will have after scheduling).
I haven't got around to watermarking myself yet but am thinking about it.
Warm wishes
Pauline
Hi Jenny,
just reading Ellen's post, I remembered the same guy that stole your pics had listed one of the Ma sal dogs/bears...I thought I'd seen another auction by this thief but couldn't remember the name of the bear artist...
I'm a bit of a computer dummy but does using a no right click template help stop them stealing your pics.
"a bear by kim"HI THERE, BIG FAN BY THE WAY!!
I HAD NO IDEA SO IV JUST DONE A BIT OF RESEARCH FOR YOU, I THINK AFTER THE WORK YOU PUT INTO THE BEAR AND PICS ITS DESCUSTING THAT SOMEONE CAN [PROFIT FROM YOURE HARD WORK AND SUCCESS
APARENTLY, TO PROTECT YOUR PICS YOU CAN HAVE A NO RIGHT CLICK SCRIPT, SO IF ANYONE TRYS TO RIGHT CLICK YOUR PICS THEN NOTHING WILL HAPPEN.
YOU HAVE TO ENTER A JAVA SCRIPT AT THE TOP OF THE DESCRIPTION AND IV COPIED AND PASTED IT HERE FOR YOU XX
HOPE IT IS OF SOME HELP XXX
<script language=JavaScript>
<!--
var message="";
///////////////////////////////////
function clickIE() {if (document.all) {(message);return false;}}
function clickNS(e) {if
(document.layers||(document.getElementById&&!document.all)) {
if (e.which==2||e.which==3) {(message);return false;}}}
if (document.layers)
{document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);document.onmousedown=clickNS;}
else{document.onmouseup=clickNS;document.oncontextmenu=clickIE;}
document.oncontextmenu=new Function("return false")
// -->
</script>
Pumpkin & Pickle BearsI can't be of any help on how to watermark pictures but I do that having a no right click won't necessarily stop them - they can copy the whole page (including the pictures) then just cut or crop the bits they want.
I have a no right click on my website and I had an email from someone a month ago who said she was new to bearmaking and she'd love to make a bear like Worzel...then she'd put a big picture of him on the email that was from my website.....now, as I said before, I have a no right click on my website so she must've copied the whole page and cropped it - I felt as if she was trying to say 'it's gonna take more than a no right click to stop me stealing your photos'. There was no reason for her to add the picture to the email - I know exactly who Worzel is...I made him afterall!!. She also mentioned that she was 15 - geez, if a 15 year old girl could do it (assuming she was telling the truth) then what's to stop an adult?
WienGemma, well, the story mad me think the same thing: she just wanted to show you, that there is always a way round.
Well, maybe she took a photograph from the picture on the screen- why knows 
One thing I learned sinc dealing with computers ( and I was assured by somebody, who´s in the pc business since 30 years) if you really want to find something wacky, weird, scandalously strange and jawdropping hidious to do on a pc: go ask a teenager- they know more about programming, dealing, steeling, using and abusing than most grown ups....
Gaby ...who´s going to check now, how to get Worzel out of his webpage :crackup:
Bears by Jodi
I hear you Jenny, I just wanted to say that i have seen yours and others auctions hijacked and just yesterday I reported 4 different auctions that were hijacked...last week I saw the same, but when I went to report them somebody already had.....so we are watching out for each other, and I like to think that our collectors are catching on to all this garbage as well and know how to tell legit from not...but all these fake auctions were from different accounts which appeared to be hijacked but from the same person saying contact me to buy it now and had an email listed....like I said though each time they used a different legit account so we really need to be careful not to click on links in any outside emails thus giving them access to our eBay accounts, this is what they use the hijacked accounts for....
Hugs,
Krista
Posts: 1,836If I'm remembering correctly scheduled auctions are the way that this is being done. You get a full listing # and auction listing that you alone can view prior to the listings set launch time.
You really don't want to add the pictures back in as a "revision". Depending on the hang time of eBay's servers you could see up to an 8 hour delay on revisions. (just like when you place an immediate listing and you can't "see it"...they will tell you it can take up to 8 hours for any listing to show).
This is a site I found when researching months ago during web designing. I haven't attempted any of it, but thought it was a good thing to pass along. Roll your cursor over the grizzly...that's a cool feature! When you click and copy you get the words right over the image...pretty cool.
http://www.wildlifephoto.net/articles/w … ction.html
:hug:
~Chrissi
I just tried adding the HTML code they suggested on my website and it works. You can't copy the pictures by right clicking. But, when you go to the menu bar on the top of the browser you can dopy but all you get is the text for the picture.!! Very cool. I'll use this in my auctions now. Thanks Chrissie . 
Her is the info I "copied' from that site:
HTML <BODY> Attributes
If you do not want to use JavaScript and pop-up windows, there is an HTML solution that might be a good choice for a photo gallery. In order to disable Right Clicks, Dragging and Selecting for the entire page, add the following to the <BODY> tag:
<BODY oncontextmenu="return false" onselectstart="return false"
ondragstart="return false">
Posts: 1,836COOL!! I never tried it. I did read that nothing is perfect and scammers are always crafty in getting around things...but at least we're doing what we can to protect ourselves and our work.
:hug:
~Chrissi
I bet they can still do a screen capture and use that , but this helps with copy and pasting at least.
I'm saddened to hear that this has started up again. I think this is the main reason I am leary about selling on eBay.
I have been actively looking for ways of protecting photos and this is a wonderful site full of information that Chrissi provided. THANK YOU CHRISSI!!!
This site also mentions encrypting your code so that even if they copy and paste the source it will take some doing to figure out what the image link is. They also provide a link for a free code encrypter. I'm not sure if you can use this with Sellers Sourcebook or not.
Hugs,
Newcastle, OntarioJenny,
I've had problems with my auctions being stolen, but not since I started putting my name across the entire picture. I just type "property of ebay user: duffyantiques" on each one. It takes a bit of time, but has been worthwhile.
You can also get the auction number by scheduling your auction, and then immediately going to My Ebay and "Scheduled auctions" and redoing the pictures with your auction number on it, but I find it a lot more work. Good luck!
hugs,
Brenda
Brenda, I do the same things as you too. I just hate that text on the picture and I figure they can crop that out if they want unless you put in right over the bears face. I've only had one auction copied and that was before adding the text too. There is no perfect answer, but it is nice to have a couple of options. Plus I think the HTML code suggested is great for a website gallery page. As long as you find something that works it's great.
Thanks for all your help ladies..I think eBay, if they were really clever they could find a way of automatically marking pictures with the auction number to prevent this fraud..I bet it would be easy for them to organise so you do wonder if they really try that hard to wipe this out. I am just going to mark my pictures in future and post big messages on my website saying , ' unless you can access the auction directly from this link then it is not my auction and you should check with me about it's legitimacy before bidding'..I reckon that'll help.....
Waggle BearsIt's distressing reading about people copying pictures of your bears. Since I don't use/like e-Bay, I wonder when you say they steal your auctions, what exactly does that mean?
Do they steal your pictures and put up auctions as their own bears? What happens, then, when someone buys from them and they don't have that bear to send?
I just have a hard time can be so devious. It would seem that with this being so prevelant as discussed here that there would be some legal recourse for you. Is there nothing you can do legally?
Marlys
Creative Design Studio (RKR4CDS)I'm not sure I could adjust my eBay templates to adapt this new way - and that site is Waaaaay cool!
.Does anybody know if there is a way that you can schedule an auction and know the item number before the auction really starts???
Most definitely Yes, scheduling an auction in the future has a very little fee and once you've uploaded a few you can sit back for a few weeks and do other things than wait for slow uploads. I've never put up an auction as soon as I finish its listing. I want them to appear & end at an ideal time for all US buyers across our 4 - 6 time zones.
I usually schedule about 3 - 4 days in advance for a minimum - time to check its appearance and any details I forgot or misspelled, and plenty of time to add the auction number that they send you immediately and change out pix. They run sequentially one, every 2 weeks, as that's how liong they take to create. Don't post more than one auction; here're 2 of the very good reasons against it:
1 - why be your own competition?
2 - if they see one at a time you're more likely to get more bids than making a bidder have to choose between two of your offerings posted at the same time.
In fact you can upload the text only - w/no pix, schedule the auction for later in the week, get the number, add it across your pix once and then insert into the auction; no image revisions.
SanguineCreationsYou can watermark like this, by going to 'layers', after you have put your text on, and taking the little arrows down(they start at 100, take it down to around 40 or what suits you, so it fades.
Silly,you probbly realize this, but..remember to make sure you keep a copy of the photo, before you do the watermark, because once you have saved it. You can't remove it.
Bobbie that's a really good point about running concurrent auctions..I do wonder when I see it done what the point of it is. I suspect I means that you don't ever realise the best price on either bear because people are torn between each one..I also think it could look like mass production..we all know it isn't ,but to buyers it might look like that.
I went through a few weeks of putting one per week up and that felt like too many. I make two bears a week if I sit at it all hours but wouldn't ever put 2 bears up on eBay at the same time...it wouldn't work for me.
WienSandy, ah,that´s exactly what I meant with typing across the picture! Even though I think, real profies can even get rid of that...or don´t care what´s written there
Gaby
