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No
Boogey Lights®
on eBay
The Problem
There are a lot of people selling LED lighting products these days. Many of
these individuals are opportunists seeking to capitalize on a trend they
believe can make them a quick buck. They often set up shop on eBay and
steal the hard work of others to represent their products. Most of them
didn't sell lighting products last year, let alone 15 years
ago. Many of
them sell inferior quality products. Several of them will not be in
business next year, or will be running some other scam under another name.
I have a real problem (figuratively and literally) with people stealing our pictures and/or our name to represent their products on eBay. This is both deceptive and illegal. While we aggressively pursue these thieves when they come to our attention, many of them go undetected. Naive shoppers think they are purchasing products that produce the same lighting effects they see in our pictures. When they install the product they realize that they've been "had." Below you'll find an example from eBay.
An Example: False
Advertising!
This particular seller is offering 4 single-LED fixtures and representing
her product using copyrighted photographs we took of our customers' bikes.
In addition to stealing our pictures, she's falsely advertising that her
product will be this bright on your bike! There's no way that 4 single-LED
fixtures compare in brightness to our products represented in the pictures
she stole from us! (Hmmmm, I wonder if her new pictures just might
exaggerate the effect you get with her lights as well...I just wonder?)
Here's part of the listing from August 7, 2004. All 3 of these thumbnail photos are of our products on our customers' bikes. This person had 53 full pages of listings, most of which used our images to illustrate the "different" products.
The Digimarc
"Asterisk" in Plain Sight
Here's an actual product listing. Note the Digimarc copyright asterisk in
the lower right hand corner of each picture. (The image snapshot software I
used to capture this image from eBay moved the asterisks to the right
slightly. They normally appear exactly in the lower right corner of the
image.) This asterisk appears when you view the pictures using the
Digimarc reader plug-in
for Internet Explorer. The asterisk tells you that there is copyright
information embedded in the image. You'll see the Digimark asterisk on all
of the photos of customers' bikes after you install this plug-in.
Click here to retrieve the complete product listing.
Here's the copyright information that is displayed when you click the asterisk. Note that the picture is copyrighted by Boogey, Inc., NOT by the seller of this product:
No Longer in
Business?
Another concern you should have about buying from individuals selling
products on eBay is whether or not they will be in business when you need
them. Here's someone who appears to have gone out of business:
http://feedback.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws1/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback&userid=lightsrus2003
So much
for the "lifetime warranty" they may have offered. Chances are they are now
operating under another seller name. Buyer beware.
Our Name: Boogey
Lights®
is a Registered Trademark
Unless you are purchasing products from us directly or one of our
Authorized Installers,
chances are quite good that you are not purchasing Boogey Lights®.
While we have a few companies that sell our products who are not listed on
our web site, there are but a few. Particularly, there is no one installing
lights at motorcycle events selling our products OTHER THAN our Authorized
Installers. There are those who advertise that they have "Boogey Lights" or
"Boogie Lights", but the truth is they don't. They are simply using our
good name in an attempt to sell their counterfeit products. Buyer beware!
We Enlist Your
Support
There is
no way we can see or pursue every occurrence of this type of copyright
infringement. However, with your help we can make progress in our pursuit
of legal remedies to this sort of theft and false advertising. You can let
us know if you see anyone using our pictures...just send a link to the site
to:
scott@boogey.com.
Best of all, you can tell all your friends not to do business with these
thieves. Thanks in advance for your support!
You may even want to download the Digimarc plug-in for Internet Explorer, so you can see whenever someone is using images marked with their digital watermark technology.
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