If eBay loses we'll all be back to selling/buying on frp.marketplace and here.... that may turn out quite nicely.

guerret wrote:I don't agree with this. eBay is just a means of selling/purchasing. I am sure that when they discover something wrong they take their own precautions, but monitoring every listing would be impossible, or at least, it would introduce excessive delays is listings.

Then, why doesn't Tiffany issue a cause against Tim Berners-Lee for creating the World Wide Web? Or to Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn for the TCP/IP protocol? If these did not exist, then these sales would not be possible, after all.

My point is this, do I expect EBay to take down every listing as soon as it comes up? No. But, I do expect that they should take action within a reasonable time frame to take down auctions that are reported as being fake. Have you ever tried reporting an illegal pdf auction? I have, lots of time, and you 5 times out of 10 they are not taken down. I have reported auctions 10 diffent ways for 10 different reasons, and the reposne a lot of times is the same: nothing. I am sorry obviously you can't take every auction down immediately if you are not sure as to whether or not it is illegal/fake, but seriously, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to be able to realize that: pdf of any copyrighted work + CD/DVD= Illegal.

bclarkie wrote:

guerret wrote:I don't agree with this. eBay is just a means of selling/purchasing. I am sure that when they discover something wrong they take their own precautions, but monitoring every listing would be impossible, or at least, it would introduce excessive delays is listings.

Then, why doesn't Tiffany issue a cause against Tim Berners-Lee for creating the World Wide Web? Or to Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn for the TCP/IP protocol? If these did not exist, then these sales would not be possible, after all.

My point is this, do I expect EBay to take down every listing as soon as it comes up? No. But, I do expect that they should take action within a reasonable time frame to take down auctions that are reported as being fake. Have you ever tried reporting an illegal pdf auction? I have, lots of time, and you 5 times out of 10 they are not taken down. I have reported auctions 10 diffent ways for 10 different reasons, and the reposne a lot of times is the same: nothing. I am sorry obviously you can't take every auction down immediately if you are not sure as to whether or not it is illegal/fake, but seriously, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to be able to realize that: pdf of any copyrighted work + CD/DVD= Illegal.

I would agree but there has to be an allowance for research. How does eBay verify the allegation. What is to stop a seller from reporting competitors auctions that might be of the same item.  I have to think it is a slippery slope we walk on when things like this start to occur. I have to think that people and companies should look a little further down the road to see where actions such as this might lead before they instigate them.

The old way was pre-Paypal. Forum-based trading would not only be safe, but FAR cheaper for all of us. People who screw others over on trades/sales do not survive long on forums, but they sure as shit flourish like bacteria on eBay, so personally I would prefer a return to the old ways.

Hmmm, eBay's accountability. Let's see........
I throw a party, and charge $10 admission. Hundreds of people show up. I do not keep track of who comes, or what they do. People are doing drugs in my bathroom, and I know about it, but I'm not responsible. Someone shoots someone, but I'm not responsible. I am merely providing a place for people to party, for a profit.

The law does not see it that way. I can be sued by the person who was shot, because I failed to provide adequate security. If I throw a party for FREE, that is a bit different, but if I provide a venue for profit, I AM liable for what occurs there. If this were not true, there would be no need for security checks at concerts. And Great White would not be in so much trouble, nor would the club owners.
Infringements of copyright are 99% common sense. I'm sorry, but it pretty fukin obvious when someone posts a stack of PDF's that they are illegal. The simplest way to alleviate this issue would be for eBay to ban ALL sales of PDF's unless they are on the ORIGINAL CD. Alternately, a poster could be required to submit a statement to eBay that the material they are selling is legal. That way, if an issue about copyright arises, not only is eBay covered, but the copyright owner has concrete evidence for a court case.
This is a perfect example of how the American lack of accountability works. It's so inane, and so obvious, that it is almost amusing. I'm sure there are plenty of non-American companies who use the same tactics, but in the US, not only countries but individuals swear by lack of accountability. We all have heard of the dumb broad who got a coffee at McDonald's drive-thru, spilled it on herself and sued them. And won millions.  

Breaking News:
COFFEE IS FUCKING HOT.

And yet the blame doesn't fall on the old bag, but on McD's, who committed the horrendous crime of serving, you guessed it, hot coffee, and not informing the customers with neon signs that the coffee was, ummm, hot. I guess she had never had coffee before, so she didn't know it is served hot.

So yes, even though eBay should not be liable for people selling counterfeit gewgaws labeled as Tifffany, they most certainly could do something to make it far more difficult and risky to do so. If I can come up with 2 different ways off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure they can do the same or better.
Tiffany has a vested interest in anyone selling counterfeits. They have no interest in antique items, since they already made their profit on those in the original sales. They are concerned about counterfeits for the same reason we are concerned about PDF's. For every person who buys a counterfeit Tiffany item, Tiffany loses a potential sale. Makes pretty good business sense to me.

You might want to avoid McDonald's then.

As a collecting community, we absolutely do NOT want eBay to lose this lawsuit. The argument Tiffany is presenting attacks the foundation that supports the entire eBay structure: namely, that eBay is simply a venue. If that foundation is brought down and eBay is somehow forced to monitor every auction on the site (and exactly how would that work, BTW? would every item for sale have to be sent to Mountain View, CA for verification?), then its costs will skyrocket. And of the two groups of people eBay must report to — shareholders and users — guess who will pick up the tab for those costs?



Addressing some interesting points:

Marlith wrote:I would agree but there has to be an allowance for research. How does eBay verify the allegation. What is to stop a seller from reporting competitors auctions that might be of the same item.

I'll take it a step further: if eBay loses this suit and is forced to act on every complaint it receives, then I'm reporting every single one of Cougar's auctions. Why? Because I don't like him. eBay will need to hire three more people just to keep up with the volume of my Cougar complaints. Sure, none of his auctions will actually get banned, but at least I'll have the satisfaction of keeping both eBay and Cougar constantly jumping through hoops.

Before you accuse me of excessive exaggeration, remind yourself that forcing eBay to monitor every item on its site is exactly what the Tiffany suit is about. I'm dead serious: if Tiffany (or another company down the road) forces this sort of change, I'm reporting every single auction from every single seller who has ever annoyed me.

Blackmoor wrote:This is a ploy by Tiffany to reduce the aftersales market of there junk! Nothing more. Simple business decision.

This is an important point. Tiffany is not some lawful good paladin out to help the little guy; Tiffany is interested solely in helping Tiffany. Which is something that, normally, I would have no problem with ... except that, in this case, it's going to raise my eBay fees by a factor of 10.

Deadlord36 wrote:Forum-based trading would not only be safe, but FAR cheaper for all of us. People who screw others over on trades/sales do not survive long on forums ...

Sure they do; they just change e-mail addresses (or whatever other identifying feature they need to change) and pretend they are someone else. To say rip-offs don't happen in the rec.games.marketplace arena is wishful thinking at its worst. At least eBay requires some level of identification before creating an account ... not to mention that it actually has a built-in feedback system. (Sorry, Frank, I don't mean it to sound like I'm singling you out; I'm just using your post as a springboard for an opinion I've had for years).

guerret wrote:Then, why doesn't Tiffany issue a cause against Tim Berners-Lee for creating the World Wide Web? Or to Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn for the TCP/IP protocol?

Or here's some examples from other marketplace-style services: if my dream job turns out to have been misrepresented by the company, do I sue CareerBuilder? If my dream date turns out to have lied about her height and weight, do I sue Match.com?

bclarkie wrote:My point is this, do I expect EBay to take down every listing as soon as it comes up? No. But, I do expect that they should take action within a reasonable time frame to take down auctions that are reported as being fake.

Yes, eBay can be absolutely maddening at times, both in terms of enforcement and consistency. But, as with most things involving eBay, scale must be considered. To use you as an example, Brian: you are one eBay user who is an expert collector in one pretty specific area, thus allowing you to easily spot and report questionable items. No problems so far (and everyone here recognizes that your effort has helped stop some really questionable eBay activities).



However, now consider the galactic size of eBay. The latest figures I've seen indicate that eBay has ~175,000,000 members worldwide and ~60,000,000 items for sale at any given time. SIXTY MILLION! And that's a revolving figure — that's 60M right now, 60M tomorrow, 60M on March 1, 60M on July 23, 2009, etc., etc. Seriously, is it any wonder that your complaints often result in no action? The sheer volume of complaints — both legitimate and not — from 175 million users with 60 million potential targets must be staggering.



Should eBay hire more people to deal with complaints? Possibly. But remember who is going to absorb the cost of all those new salaries ...



+++++



The New York Times article on this subject is well worth a look, for those interested:



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/techn ... ted=1&_r=1

Deadlord36 wrote:Alternately, a poster could be required to submit a statement to eBay that the material they are selling is legal. That way, if an issue about copyright arises, not only is eBay covered, but the copyright owner has concrete evidence for a court case.

I've never sold on Ebay so I don't know the terms for listing items, but I'd be very surprised if terms didn't require sellers to indemnify Ebay against any claims arising from that listing.  It seems common sense to include a clause that says, in short, you can't do anything illegal.

Never apologize for stating your opinion, Xax.
I'm pretty sure I already clarified a very simple method to alleviate most of the copyright issues.
60 million auctions at .25 per listing (minimum). So what you're saying is that they make 15 MILLION DOLLARS A DAY JUST IN LISTING FEES.
Are you shitting me? You can't seriously think that they can't afford to hire about 500 people who spend their time doing nothing but checking referred listings for potential issues, and dispensing warnings or suspensions to those who violate policies. Pay them $100 a day, and you get $50,000. Let's throw in benefits at $80 a day. $90,000. Wait, let's get them nice soft chairs, free beverages and a masseuse every 3 days. And let's double the pay to $200 a day. Whoa, that is around what, $180,000? Gee, I can see where that would break eBay's bank.
And I didn't even count fees for sold items.

The amount of illegial stuff sold on ebay is staggering. I look in the DVD section quite frequently and I suppost about 50% are are "Authorised Chinese Collectors Editions" or some such crap... the fakes are huge business not just 1 or 2 people... I 'd prob expect something along the lines that it you advertise something with certain name brands (ie tiffany) or wish to sell something in  a certain catagory (ie DVD's) then you will have to go through a more elaberate identification process and a declariation that the item is genuine, you might be limited to listing of only 1 item a week with certain identiting words if not.. and if you wish to become a platinum coated seller the same restrictions would apply..

Brette:)