I want to sell branded electrical goods on my eCommerce website (ie images like you see on Argos or Amazon showing a Nintendo Wii or Sony Playstation etc).

After reading the copyright laws it seems you need to obtain permission from the copyright owner as these images shall be used for commercial activities. So do I contact Mr Nintendo and Mr Sony for permission? Is this what Amazon etc have to do?

I find this hard to believe as I can imagine it would be expensive to buy a license to use these images.
What about using the images on advert banners as well (again Amazon ads show branded images all the time)?
I've done a lot of searching on the net but can't find anything useful.

OK, say you're Sears. You have an exclusive right to the Kenmore name. No other store can use it -- for new appliances. But Sears also has contracts with, say, GE, and the use of the name in their advertising is part of the contract.

Used appliances are another story. You can advertise that you are selling a Kenmore refrigerator, even take a picture of it and post it online. But you can't use their advertising images or logo without their permission.

The important thing there is ownership of the images -- if they're royalty-free stock art, fine. If they're images you've produced, fine. If not, if in doubt, don't use it.

If you're planning to deal in games and gaming systems, you may wish to write a letter of intent to sell those systems, and they may have stock images you can use.

tim

ok, I thought I post on my current findings.
If I was a franchiser selling (say) Amazon goods, then Amazon will give me permission to use THEIR product images on my eCommerce website. This is usually done as a CD full or copyright material/images for me to use.

If I was going it alone, ie I was buying all the stock myself and selling it on-line, then as stated above I would have to seek permission from the product manufactures (ie Sony, Nintendo etc). There are stock photos that they would want you to use so long as you don't modify them in anyway.