posted on January 24, 2001 03:35:03 PM
I am a VERO for a book I wrote.
One of my customers bought it off me..and then started reselling it. I had Ebay end the auctions as I am the VERO , and have been for some time.
Well the person threatens me by saying...if I cant sell it you wont either.
I did not this much of this threat...
Until today...
I get an ebay from [email protected] ending my auction. They wont relist it either. I complain and tell them the situation and they say I have to work it out with the VERO and have the VERO email them to allow me to relist. What a JOKE! I am the VERO!!
This sucks! I make a little money on this book and it really helps out...
posted on January 24, 2001 03:45:01 PM
WOW.... how silly is that!?!?!
I think you should eMail [email protected] and explain to them what is going on. I believe that if that other seller turned you in for a violation... KNOWING that they were making it up just to interfere with your auctions... it SHOULD be considered Auction Interference by them and an EMBARRASSING BLUNDER by eBay for taking the bait!
posted on January 24, 2001 04:07:20 PM
"I am a VERO for a book I wrote."
"One of my customers bought it off me..and then started reselling it. I had Ebay end the auctions as I am the VERO , and have been for some time."
"Well the person threatens me by saying...if I cant sell it you wont either. "
*********
Are they selling the PHYSICAL books they bought from you or are they making copies to resell?
It is 100% legal for them to SELL any books they bought from you: Yoo cannot stop them from that, no matter if you have copyright or not. (doctrine of first sale, 1906 Superme Court decision)
IF they are making COPIES and reselling the copies, as VERO you have ONLY ONE OPTION: report them to eBay as "infringing" AND withing 10-14 days, you MUST file suit in a federal court for their violating your copyright ... if you do not file the suit, yuo can't use the VERO claim on them again. (it's a put up or shut up kind of thing)
Did you register the material with thye US Copyright office (fill out forms, send money)?
If you did, you can send them a cease and desist letter and then sue them, but it's civil and expensive.
posted on January 25, 2001 09:06:45 AM
I sold them a copy of my book in MS Word, let them download it..then they started making copies and reselling it.
I stopped them as I am the VERO, they responded if I can sell it you wont either.
They became a VERO and stopped my auctions, now neither of us can sell. Its my bloody book, but EBAY wont let me relist , they want me to get permission from my customer...this is nuts...like talking to a wall at Ebay..they send me nothing but canned responses...
I am a good seller with 3000 all positive feedback too!
HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS? IS THIS A FACT> Theer is no point in me filing suit as they are not selling it anymore...But if they dont file suit then can I resell no problem? This is a very strange situation. Its driving me crazy!
"IF they are making COPIES and reselling the copies, as VERO you have ONLY ONE OPTION: report them to eBay as "infringing" AND withing 10-14 days, you MUST file suit in a federal court for their violating your copyright ... if you do not file the suit, yuo can't use the VERO claim on them again. (it's a put up or shut up kind of thing) ""
posted on January 25, 2001 09:19:15 AM
You have your information all mixed up. All you have to do is send a signed letter (eBay has the form) that states you have a right to sell the book. Then you will be allowed to sell it again. If the other party does the same, then (from eBay's perspective) you will have to take them to court. However, they can't stop you from selling your book. Contact VeRO.
posted on January 25, 2001 09:29:10 AM
twinsoft is right. You have proof that you were selling it first. (your ebay history) and you have proof that you sold it to them. and you have proof that they did not sell it until after they bought it from you. Ebay can verify this info very easily.
The entire problem can most likely be handled through email, provided you can supply them with the auction number in which this peanut head bought the program from you.
posted on January 25, 2001 09:35:43 AM
TWINSOFT:
IS what you say true? If so then problem solved. I cannot afford to take anyone to court. How do I go about doing this? I have asked them for a counter notice request? Whatever that is but they have not sent it to me..so is both of us do this then ebay will allow me to sell still? Is this just what Ebay does to get them off the hook?
Here is the last email they send me.
"
Thank you for your email!
As you know, eBay neither handles the auction items nor possesses
sufficient information to make judgments regarding their legality or
authorized nature. Accordingly, we rely upon receiving from Verified
Rights Owners requests to end auctions which substantially comply with
federal law. Your auction was ended because we received such a notice
from XXXXXXXXXX.
eBay values you as a member of the eBay community, and recognizes that
on occasion an auction may be ended in error or due to
misidentification. We have encouraged Verified Rights Owners to create
their own "About Me" pages and be available to answer questions and
clear up any errors or misunderstandings. If you have not already done
so, we encourage you to contact them directly at
XXXXXXXXXXX. If they agree that your auction item can be
relisted, please have them contact us by e-mail to notify us, and we
will allow it to be re-listed.
If you have made a good faith effort to resolve the situation with the
rights owner, but have been unable to do so, you may contact us by
replying to this email. If we are not able to help you resolve the
situation, and still believe you have the legal right to list the item,
you may file a legal Counter-Notice with us, the form for which we can
e-mail to you, and we will send it to the complaining party. In the
Counter-Notice you will be required to state under penalty of perjury
that you have a good faith belief that the ended auction does not
involve infringing materials and that it was taken down by mistake or
due to misidentification.
If you request a counter notice from us, please specify the subject as
"Counter-Notice Request" and include the item number and your user name
in the e-mail. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.
For more information about infringing items and eBay's VeRO Program,
please visit:
posted on January 25, 2001 09:38:55 AM
I have all the email, and he paid with paypal.
I still have the email he sent that says "If he cant sell then I wont either"
Problem is he used a different id to register as a vero..and the contact ebay gave me is not even a registered user.
posted on January 25, 2001 09:51:24 AM
Yes, it is true. Fill out the counter-notice. eBay does this just to get themselves off the hook, they do not judge one way or the other. However, you should take the time to present the problem to them as one of auction interference. If the email they provided is invalid then the user will be booted quickly. Sorry this happened to you.
posted on January 25, 2001 10:14:26 AM
Twinsoft is right. If you really wrote the thing, forge ahead and fill out the form at the bottom (accompanied by eBay's explanation):
****
Dear eBay Seller,
eBay recognizes that sometimes an auction may be mistakenly identified by a Verified
Intellectual Property Owner, its agent, or law enforcement, as including an infringing or otherwise unauthorized or illegal item. In the event that such a mistake occurs, you should contact the complaining party directly. eBay will gladly allow you to re-list the item upon receipt of acknowledgement of the mistake from the complaining party.
Alternately, if the complaining party does not agree that the allegation was in error, you may also provide eBay the attached Counter-Notice Regarding Ended Auction. The Counter Notice form requests a sworn statement under the penalty of perjury and other information which substantially complies with the requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. section 512, which states:
To be effective under this subsection, a counter notification must be a written communication provided to the service provider’s designated agent that includes substantially the following:
(A) A physical or electronic signature of the subscriber.
(B) Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was disabled.
(C) A statement under penalty of perjury that the subscriber has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.
(D) The subscriber’s name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that the subscriber consents to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which the address is located, or if the subscriber’s address is outside the United States, for any judicial district in which the service provider may be found, and that the subscriber will accept service of process from the person who provided notification under subsection (c)(1)(C) or an agent from such person.
Please fill out the Counter-Notice form for each occurrence of an alleged act of mistakenly reported or misidentified infringement and return it to the address provided below. We require that you physically sign the form. Notification from a seller that fails to comply with the provisions above shall not be considered as providing actual knowledge or an awareness of facts or circumstances sufficient to require eBay to allow re-listing of the removed items. Upon receiving the original of your fully completed Counter-Notice, eBay will notify the reporting entity of the Counter Notice and inform that entity that eBay will allow the re-listing of the removed items within 10-14 days, unless, following receipt of the Counter Notice, eBay receives notice from the reporting entity that it has filed an action seeking a court order to prohibit you from re-listing such infringing items. If the reporting entity disagrees with your Counter-Notice, they may file a legal action against you to prevent the re-listing of the ended auction item(s). Alternatively, if they notify us in writing or by e-mail that they no longer object to the auction item or material, we will allow it to be re-listed.
Very truly yours,
eBay Inc.
COUNTER-NOTICE REGARDING
ENDED AUCTION*
I. Penalty of Perjury Statement. I CERTIFY UNDER SWORN PENALTY OF
PERJURY that I am sending this notification on the basis of my good faith belief that the
auctions referred to below do not involve infringing materials or uses and have been
identified by a Verified Intellectual Property Owner, its agent, or law enforcement as
infringing by mistake or due to misidentification: (List Auction Items Below)
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
II. Consent to Federal Jurisdiction. I consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District
Court for the address provided below, or if such address is outside the United States, I consent to jurisdiction of the Federal District Court, County of Santa Clara, California.
III. Consent for Service of Process. I agree to accept service of process from the Verified Intellectual Property Owner, its agent, or law enforcement.
IV. Contact Information. I certify that the following contact information is accurate and valid. I acknowledge that eBay will compare the contact information provided herein with my eBay contact information, and false or fraudulent information may result in suspension of my eBay account.
V. I understand that my knowing misrepresentation herein that material was removed by mistake or misidentification may make me liable under federal law for damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees. See 17 U.S.C. section 512.
VI. I understand that if the reporting party disagrees with the Counter-Notice it may file a legal action against me to prevent the re-listing of the ended auctions.
VII. Acknowledgement. I acknowledge that this notice is filed under penalty of perjury.
I may be contacted at:
Name____________________________________
Street Address____________________________________
___________________________________________
City and State____________________________________
Zip____________________________________
E-mail____________________________________
Telephone____________________________________
Fax____________________________________
Date____________________________________
Signature____________________________________
UNDER SWORN PENALTY OF PERJURY
Send to: eBay Inc., Attn: Legal Counter-Notice, 2145 Hamilton Ave., San Jose, CA 95125.
Attach to this notice any relevant correspondence, including emails, with eBay or the intellectual property owner.
* This Counter-Notice complies substantially with the requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. section 512.
posted on January 25, 2001 11:29:56 AM
Sale of a file is always so stupid! They obviously do not understand copyright law, and if you are unwilling to sue, there is NOTHING you can do to stop them except convince eBay that YOU are the VERO because you sold it to them and they are now selling the file as if their own.
""IF they are making COPIES and reselling the copies, as VERO you have ONLY ONE OPTION: report them to eBay as "infringing" AND withing 10-14 days, you MUST file suit in a federal court for their violating your copyright ... if you do not file the suit, yuo can't use the VERO claim on them again. (it's a put up or shut up kind of thing) ""
How do I know this? Because I read the whole danged Digital Millenium Copyright act, that's why.
Here's the sequence:
1. VERO notifies eBay of infringing
2. eBay MUST pull the material and notify the person who loaded it.
3. person MUST file the VERO counterclaim within X days, signing under penalty of perjury that they hace a legal right to sell the material.
(if they don't send the counterclaim, eBay does not restore the material)
4. Within X days of recieving the counterclaim, the VERO MUST file suit in federal court (this prevents false claims, and keeps harasment to a minimum)
If suit is not filed, the ISP (eBay in this instance) MUST restore the material.
You can't keep filing VERO claims with an ISP if you aren't willing to back it up with legal action ...
This doesn't keep you from filing suit later for infringement, it just means that the ISP has to restore the removed material because you chose to not file suit. It's to keep ISPs from being barraged by repeated VERO requests form a VERO who thinks it's a cheap way to keep infringers under control.
posted on January 25, 2001 12:26:44 PM
Well Ebay just wont listen...They cant get it into their heads that I was the VERO for this and have been for a long time..I have explained the whole situation and this is what they send me...ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
"
We understand your frustration in this matter, and hopefully I can
explain the matter more clearly for you. Since we are not the content
owners for XXXXXX products, we do not know what items they own
copyrights and/or trademarks for.
We allow such companies, at their discretion to join our VeRO program,
so that they can identify auctions that are infringing upon their
copyrights and/or trademarks. When they report items to us, they are
required to sign a legal document stating under penalty of perjury that
they are the content owners, and the items listed are infringing upon
their copyrights. They are not required to inform us of the specifics
of exactly what and/or why the auction are infringing. You can contact
them at:
XXXXXX.XXX
If a significant amount of time has passed and you have still not been
able to correspond with the VeRO member, please let us know. At that
time, if you have made a good faith effort to resolve the situation with
the rights owner but have been unable to do so, and believe you have the
legal right to list the item, you may contact us by replying to this
email. You may file a legal Counter-Notice with us, the form for which
we can e-mail to you, and we will send it to the complaining party. In
the Counter-Notice you will be required to state under penalty of
perjury that you have a good faith belief that the ended auction does
not involve infringing materials and that it was taken down by mistake
or due to misidentification.
If you request a counter notice from us, please specify the subject as
"Counter-Notice Request" and include the item number and your user name
in the e-mail.
Once we receive the document with the alleged infringing items listed,
we are required by federal law to end the auctions reported, unless
there is an obvious error on the list, such as Microsoft requesting the
ending of a Chanel product. Since Microsoft doesn't own the Chanel
copyrights, they cannot know for sure what is infringing upon Chanel.
Unfortunately, when sellers write to us asking why their auction was
ended, the only information we can tell them is to contact the content
owner, since we do not know the exact reasons why the auctions were
requested to be ended. As well, since we do not know the exact reasons
why the auction were ended, we cannot tell the sellers how to avoid
having the auction ended again at the request of the content owner.
This is again why we tell the sellers of ended auctions to contact the
content owners.
By contacting the content owners, you can find out the exact reason why
the auction was ended, and they will be able to answer all of your
questions on how to relist the item without it being infringing upon
their copyrights and/or trademarks. Sometimes auctions are requested to
be ended in error by the content owners. When this happens, the sellers
can contact the content owner, and explain why it is not infringing. If
the content owners agree with the sellers that the auction was ended
incorrectly, they can contact us to let us know that the auction was
ended in error, and we will reinstate the auction for the seller, and
contact the bidders.
I hope that this information helps to explain some of the procedures we
follow, as well as to explain our position in matters of copyright
infringement with other content owners. If you have any further
questions, please feel free to let us know.
posted on January 25, 2001 01:33:13 PM
lowprofile:
Did you send the counterclaim to eBay, attesting to the fact that you are lawfully able to sell the items, and that your auction was ended in error? THAT's what you need to do. Sending repeated email to eBay support, trying to explain the situation, won't work. They CAN'T do anything about it until you send them the completed counterclaim.
