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They might be using a picture that is rights/royalty-free, or even something they've paid for because they don't have the equipment to shoot their own teas. Rishi probably has paid for the use of that photo, since it's on their packaging. In the Zen organics picture, it looks more like the picture is being use for decorative purposes than actually showing off their particular matcha. You might want to email each company and ask them to send you a picture of their matcha, if you're really very interested.

Island Tea Shop is the same ebay store that stole one of Space Samurai's images, so I expect foul play. Interesting find, though. Thanks for posting it!

Very interesting. Thanx for posting this and welcome Jonie to TeaChat.

As Scruff mentioned, Island Tea has "borrowed w/out permission" more than once as discussed by clicking here.

And to think, I was recently contemplating giving them a break and talking to Space about moving that topic. I am inclined to let it go now.

While very similar, the Rishi image is actually different. Based on my experience, I would guess that the eBay store may have "borrowed" their image from Zen Organics.

Again in my experience, matcha is by far the most challenging teas to photograh, so it doesn't surprise me that small eBay shops and such would try to use other images to sell their product.

edit: when I first posted this comment, I hadn't noticed that the eBay store was Island Tea Shop. In that case, I am sure that (expletive) took the image without asking.

Two simultaneous threads running about Island Tea Shop's image theiving...

Ooh, good catch with the Rishi pic Space. I just glanced at it earlier, but you're right. The images have very similar compositions, but they are different.

Wonder if Zen would be interested in knowing their image has been stolen and is being used by these guys?

GeekgirlUnveiled wrote:Wonder if Zen would be interested in knowing their image has been stolen and is being used by these guys?

I sent them an email just now.

Yeah, Rishi's is different.

Very interesting to compare the two...

Zen:

IslandTea:


Even while stealing the photo, they managed to make it look worse!

If you do an image search, that image shows up on many sites, leading me to believe that it is a stock image. Not to say that IT did NOT steal it, (since they've demonstrated that they WILL lift images without permission,) just to say that Zen possibly doesn't own the image, but has purchased usage rights, as have (apparently) a number of other companies.