Would these be copyrighted? If there is no mention of copyright on the page, would it be okay to use?
Copyright is attached as soon as the picture is taken. It makes no difference if there is a copyright notice or not. What are the chances that some person that took a picture of their car to put on ebay will come across your site, understand copyright law, and be upset enough to do anything about it? Not big. Plus, unless they registered the copyright, they can't sue you for much money (though any lawsuit will probably cost you a few thousand in legal fees).
Hu??? You started so well, there is no need to "register" copyright to be able to sue for money. Yes, everything you create is automatically copyrighted so the images are copyrighted but the chances of someone suing would be low and it is unlikely that they would have suffered significant financial loss by your breach so the damages would be nominal plus legal costs. The other consideration is that some car manufactures are very protective of images of their vehicles and will also sue for breach of their IP rights if you use images of their vehicles in a commercial venture without their express permission first.
If you read my post Astaroth, I didn't say they can't sue if it isn't registered. I said they can't sue for much. If one does not register copyright before the infringement occurs (or within 3 months of original publication) then they can only sue for actual damages. They cannot sue for statutory damages or legal fees. Truthfully, a work must be registered before suit can be brought at all. It does not have to be registered at the time of the infringement, but it has to be registered before it is heard by the judge. Example 1 - somebody uses a picture that has been registered. The copyright owner can sue for actual damages, statutory damages (generally the biggest part of the award), and legal fees (second biggest part of the claim usually). Example 2 - somebody uses a picture that has not been registered (it has been 8 months since the original publication). Then the copyright owner then registers the copyright. The owner can now only sue for actual damages. That is likely to be small (in this case less than it would cost to hire a lawer. Example 3 - somebody uses a picture that has not been registered (it has been 8 months since the original publication). Then the copyright owner still fails to register the copyright. If he takes the case to court, the judge will throw it out as he has no standing. The copyright must be registered at the time of the case (though not at the time of the infringement).
But you are making the assumption that both parties are in the USA In the UK in all 3 examples the person can only sue for actual damages plus court costs. The ability to sue for legal fees is subject to which level of court hears the case (which track) which in turn is based upon a combination of the amount of damages being claimed and the complexity of the case.
I did assume both parties were in the US, but that was because out of the 42,475 cars and trucks available on eBay, 42,416 are from the US. Chances are great that at least one of the people in this example would be in the US, and if only one of them is from the US it is probably the person that took the picture. I do understand that in the UK there is no official registration of copyrights that gives additional protection in the courts.
Where as if I look at ebay of the 34,211 cars available all are in the UK - depends which version of ebay you look at as I am sure if you are in france you will see a masive slant towards cars for sale in france