Copyright Theft
Perhaps we should be flattered by the number of people including dealers who continually infringe our IP (Intellectual Property) rights by using our copyright images, but we do not find it amusing, and will take legal action against any copyright thieves.
Hallmarkcoins.co.uk
Hallmarkcoins.co.uk is just one of the many coin dealers, bloggers & websites worldwide who commit copyright theft by using our copyright images without our permission. On their page site, a page of which we reproduce here, they are clearly using our kilo gold coin photograph of Lawrence Chard, our director holding a quantity of kilo gold coins. In the text of their page, they have admitted the photo was sourced from Flickr. We own the intellectual property to to this photograph, and have not licensed Hallmark to use it.
Sample Listing
The owner of Tax Free Gold Lawrence Chard carefully displays some make-believe information supposedly sent in anonymously from a client regarding a nightmare that took place with well known Essex company Regency Coins Ltd.
The Truth
Hallmark Coins was set up in 2009 by Matthew Barber and ex-director of Regency Coins Mark Hall to become a reliable and competitive source for Gold Sovereigns purchased online.
Whilst in the early stages of building a business Regency Coins was forced to cease trading and investigation for fraud and misrepresentation was carried out, Mark Hall and Lee Connor co-operated with the police helping with their investigation and no charges were ever brought against them.
After helping with the investigation Mark Hall removed himself from Directorship of Hallmark Coins with no involvement of the company only as an employee, leaving Matthew Barber as the only Company Director.
Hallmark Coins has no relation whatsoever to the Regency Coins as his article is suggesting despite the fact that several people from Regency Coins are working here now.
This misleading information can be found here.
Although Tax Free Gold does not make any accusations directly against Hallmark Coins, we are very well aware of its’ deliberate intent.
What’s Wrong?
It is dishonest and unethical to pirate and steal other people’s work by using high quality copyright photographs without the owner’s consent. We can partially understand why they do it; it is quick and easy (but then so is robbing people).
Hallmark admit where they sourced the photo. If you were to search Flickr.com, you would find this page which clearly states
by Lawrence Chard …
©
All rights reserved
Although ignorance of the law is no defence, Hallmark can hardly claim ignorance in this case.
Copyright abuse is unprofessional and dishonest. On the basis of this, we believe that Hallmark Coins Limited is both unprofessional and dishonest. We will be serving legal documents on them shortly.
Defamation
Hallmark continue be making and / or repeating and republishing allegations about us which are false and intended to causes us loss in their trade or profession, or causes a reasonable person to think worse of us. Hallmark have and cannot have any reasonable grounds for making these false statements, and we will shortly be serving legal documents on them in regard to this.
Nett Worth
On the excellent duedil.com website, we see that as at 31st July 2011, the nett asset value of Hallmark coins Limited was -£7062 (an adverse balance or deficit of over £7,000). It is likely that we will never recover any legal costs against this company. This information should also put warn their potential customers to exercise caution when dealing with them.
Further Reading
Regency Coins in High Court
Regency Coins
