posted on September 12, 2000 06:45:18 AM new
eBay continues to allow illegal auction listings. Here is a copy of my latest email to them (names and numbers changed per AW guidelines).
Please advise me what is the difference between this item and the items of mine that eBay canceled? In my case, you canceled 5 of my auctions within 24 hours of my listing them. In this case, I notified you about
this item 3 days ago yet it still appears.
I would like to know what I have to do to be able to relist my 'illegal' items. There appears to be some kind of discrimination going on here.
I would also like to know why over 400 auctions for Emmy Consideration tapes are allowed to continue on your site. I have been advising you about these for OVER 2 weeks, Lizzie has agreed with me via a telecon
last Sunday that they are illegal per eBay's written policy as prepared by eBay lawyers, and I have sent Lizzie an email from ABC Television confirming that they are illegal. More of these confirmations from other
studios and the actual copyright holders will be forthcoming.
I intend to contact the media about this blatant disregard of the law for "some" eBay sellers yet not for others. I believe you have had ample time to deal with these issues. If you wish to respond, specifically
addressing the above issues, I will include your response in my media release - otherwise I will have to state "No comment from eBay". I plan to draft and submit my article to the media this afternoon.
Thank you for your anticipated immediate attention to these matters.
If anyone here has additional media contacts, please post them.
This discrimination by eBay to allow their "Power Sellers" to list and sell illegal items, yet NARU the 'little guy' for listing IDENTICAL items has to be made public
posted on September 19, 2000 11:43:05 AM new
Reponse from eBay is still zilch, nada, 'let's talk about the weather instead'. When I talked to eBay on the phone (they called me!), I was given the party line about how many members they have, how they are now bigger than New York, yada yada yada. Not once did their rep address the issue. He did offer to un-NARU me but I told him I was not interested in dealing with, or via a shady operation like eBay anymore.
Apparently, however, an email to the MPAA seems to be working. Some idiot eBay seller actually listed a phoney item with a starting bid of $1000.00 [AW MODERATOR - This item has since been removed by eBay so I am not violating Community Guidelines by posting this info!]. The 'item' was his whine about how he believes the producing studios shouldn't be concerned about loss of revenue, and that he should be allowed to sell these illegal tapes. He was also dumb enough to include a cut and paste of the complete text of an email he received from Warner Brothers lawyers in Beverly Hills. This email has ordered him to cease his auctions for certain tapes, turn in the tapes he has not sold, provide a list of all the people that he sold them to, and name his sources where he got them. (his response says he got them from some nice little old ladies and he is not about to name them!). The lawyers have given him until September 29 to comply.
Methinks this dude, his sources, and his customers are in for a real ride. These MPAA legal guys don't have any sense of ha ha
I only wish they would also slap eBay with some kind of fine for knowingly allowing these illegal auctions to continue ...
posted on September 25, 2000 10:41:34 AM new
It was "Jason". Not sure if these are real people or just letters of the alphabet so that when I, for example, contact eBay about an email I got from "Jason", they know how many other eBay 'staff' I have already talked to.
"Jason" was a little more hard-nosed than the previous ones, so maybe they get tougher as they work their way up the alphabet. At any rate, "Jason" is just as big an idiot and liar as the rest of them - he has some real delusions of grandeur problems (he's going to change the eBay policy statement that was written by the eBay lawyers???)
posted on October 7, 2000 01:20:16 AM new
I find that any on line auction business would have a hard time in discriminating against anyone. I've been a seller (OUCH!!, wife just smacked me on the back of the head) for nearly 2 years. Many times I find numerous items which may seem to others, to be in violation of their terms. But never (OUCH!!, wife just slapped me again) discrimination toward someone selling illegal items.
(OUCH!! OUCH!!, wife's upset now, say's to tell the truth) OK, OK, we all know it happens and until the Justice Department and other sellers such as yourself, continue to report these violations (PAT PAT, now she's happy), they'll continue their deceptive practices.
As a very large example of what results when the Gov. steps in here's the latest on two giants of this industry. Trusted? Sure Realiable? Without question, or are they?
In massive settlements, auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's have agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to close the book on charges of price fixing. Sotheby's Holding and former Chairman A. Alfred Taubman agreed to pay a total of $326 million in cash, stock and discount commission coupons to settle its civil antitrust and shareholder lawsuits.
Taubman will pay $156 million as his part of the settlement, with the auction house paying the balance made up of $50 million in cash and $50 million in discount coupons.
Christie's announced that it has approved a $512 million settlement of its class action civil suit in which it was charged with price fixing and anticompetitive practices. The settlement also involves cash and discount coupons.
The Justice Department's ongoing criminal probe into Sotheby's and Christie's activities is not affected by the civil settlement.
Key being "anticompetitve practices", which had resulted in certain sellers items being placed on the back burner until "like" items of favored sellers had already sold.
posted on October 11, 2000 01:42:32 PM new
Good news video tape sellers!
eBay is now allowing NTSC conversions of PAL format VHS tapes to be sold on their venue!
PAL format tapes are commercially released in the UK and cannot be played back on North American VCRs. Some enterprising sellers have converted these tapes to NTSC and they are being allowed to sell their converted copies on eBay.
Technically, of course, this is no different than selling copies of rental tapes or other commercially released tapes, CDs or DVDs, but, eBay is allowing this.
eBay have advised me on a couple of different listings that they have done their investigations and have taken, what they call, appropriate action. This appropriate action is allowing these auctions to continue.
Looks like eBay has changed their rules a bit to allow these types of auctions - could mean a whole flock of returnees from Yahoo where sales of video tapes like this have been allowed since Day 1.
posted on October 11, 2000 08:53:49 PM new
EBAY REMOVES KEY CODE MACHINE ALSO FROM LOCKSMITH. THE LAW IS NOT TO SEND PICKS IN THE MAIL. A KEY CODE MACHINE IS NOT A PICK. EBAY NEEDS LAWERS THAT CAN READ A WEBSTER DICTIONERY. I WILL BE HONEST "I CANT SPELL"
posted on October 11, 2000 11:22:43 PM new
no kidding, it's not just with entertainment they have disparate policies on. Check out their Chanel listings...usually well over 1200. I however, apparently not on "the list" (the good one that is) was recently suspended for 14 days for listing a Chanel scarf. It's so absurd as to (almost) be funny. Same experience, the little wizard behind the curtain, mine was name "frederica", sent a non-responsive email to my approximately 25 emails I sent asking WHAT?? I honestly don't know how they get away with enforcing their so call vero undecipherable policies in such an arbitrary manner. My guess is until they irritate a lawyer who knows copyright law and calls them on it they will continue to spit on the little guy. Glad to hear that others are talking about it outside the "eBay community". Michelle
posted on October 13, 2000 07:17:01 AM new
"The 'item' was his whine about how he believes the producing studios shouldn't be concerned about loss of revenue, and that he should be allowed to sell these illegal tapes. . ."
NAPSTER anyone? Although you are not charged for the music, you are still stealing the revenues that should be paid to hardworking musicians. Same thing, different venue.
As long as the consumer allows this to happen and continues buying or downloading this stuff, the game will continue. As long as companies such as Ebay and NAPSTER are making money, the game will continue. As long as certain government officials are making money off of these companies, the game will continue. Don't look to Ebay or NAPSTER to police themselves. It's our jobs as consumers to do the policing. I applaud all of your attempts! I refuse to use NAPSTER and I refuse to buy anything from Ebay that I think is hurting some hardworking individual(s). Now, if we could get the rest of the world to do the same. . .
posted on October 25, 2000 09:38:52 PM new
Don't start w/ Napster - They technically aren't stealing anything and the outcome of there actions is that the record companies are just slightly less in control of their overpriced distribution channels. Musicians get paid such a small percent of revenue anyhow. Many musicians just get a fixed fee regardless of sales. Napster will win in court. Sorry to get off topic, but feel kind of strongly about it...
