Software makers threaten to sue eBay over counterfeits
First it was fashion giant LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA complaining about counterfeit fashion goods on eBay. Then it was Tiffany taking eBay to court.
Now it's the software industry telling eBay that it needs to do more to detect and delete listings for counterfeit goods--or else.
The Software and Information Industry Association, a Washington, D.C., trade association that counts companies such as Intuit, Sun Microsystems, and Red Hat as board members, said on Thursday that it's contemplating a lawsuit against eBay. Another option, the group said, would be lobbying Congress to rewrite the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and make online auctioneers liable for what's sold.
"Their refusal to work with us will only push us closer and closer to a lawsuit," Keith Kupferschmid, SIIA's senior vice president for intellectual property policy and enforcement, said in an interview.
Kupferschmid said the SIIA has offered at least 20 suggestions to eBay listing ways it can aid the software industry in curbing the sale of pirated software. Among the suggestions: not allowing the "Buy It Now" option on software; placing a notice in a user's feedback if they have been caught selling pirated software; adding a delay on software auctions so they can be reviewed; and permitting the SIIA to run a paid ad on the Web site telling eBay visitors about the risk of buying pirated software.
"They just say no," Kupferschmid said. "We've never been given any rationale."
Instead of taking legal aim at eBay--no suit has been filed so far--the SIIA has busy targeting individual pirates on the site.
It made a point of touting a federal prosecution in which Jeremiah Mondello, 23, of Eugene, Ore., was sentenced on Wednesday to four years in prison for selling $1 million worth of counterfeit software. Prosecutors said Mondello made more than $400,000 in profit from the sales, and included an aside in a press release saying that the SIAA provided "assistance to the investigation."
The SIIA has relied on civil cases filed against eBay users. This year it says it has filed 32 civil complaints, and Kuperfschmid said all previous cases have resulted in victories. The users convicted of copyright infringement were kicked off the site, and some also paid monetary damages at an average of $50,000.
But assailing only individuals isn't sufficient for the SIIA, who said it is considering suing eBay itself for copyright infringement.
"That's something that we have talked about with our members and talked about internally...we are certainly waiting to see if eBay will do more, or actually do anything to address the software piracy problem they have on their site," Kuperfschmid said.
It may be an uphill battle. In last week's decision, a federal judge in New York wrote that eBay cannot be forced to shoulder the burden of examining individual auction listings for possible counterfeits.
"The court is not unsympathetic to Tiffany and other rights holders who have invested enormous resources in developing their brands, only to see them illicitly and efficiently exploited by others on the Internet," U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan wrote. "Nevertheless, the law is clear: it is the trademark owner's burden to police its mark."
For its part, eBay says it spends $5 million a year on maintaining its fraud search engine, which has 13,000 rules that are designed to identify counterfeit listings based on words such as "replica" or "knock-off." Listings flagged by the search engine are manually reviewed by customer service representatives. In addition, eBay offers a Verified Rights Owner ("VeRO") program that lets trademark owners report and remove infringing listings.
Making matters tricky is that it may (or may not) be legal to resell legitimately purchased software if the End User License Agreement, or EULA, says you can't. Courts in different states have reached different conclusions about whether the EULA contract can trump the generally recognized right, called the first sale doctrine, of customers to resell books, DVDs, or audio CDs.
"Counterfeits are very bad for our business--we don't want them on our site. People don't want to buy them and we don't want to sell them. But we can't be the expert," eBay spokesperson Nichola Sharpe said on Thursday. "We recognized very early on we need to partner and collaborate. We established the VeRO program in 1998 and we partner with 18,000 associations, including the SIIA."
Sharpe said the VeRO program allows a copyright owner to patrol the site and notify eBay to take down the listing. In addition, she said her employer takes extra steps to prevent illegal goods such as luxury goods and software from being listed, though it will not remove the "Buy It Now" option at SIIA's request.
SIIA's concern isn't exactly new: It launched a so-called auction litigation program in May 2006 and has been occasionally agitating against eBay ever since.
The SIIA said it had been waiting until the results of the counterfeit lawsuit brought by jewelry maker Tiffany were in.
Kuperfschmid thinks that any SIIA lawsuit would be taking a different approach, perhaps relying more on copyright law than trademark law, which had been Tiffany's strategy. (Tiffany's lawyers said last week that their client was likely to appeal.)
"The standards are somewhat different under copyright than trademark law," Kuperfschmid said. "If you look in the statute under the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), it does have a standard for determining when eBay may or may not be liable," Kuperfschmid said.
And if courts eventually rule that the DMCA doesn't force eBay to be the kind of Net-cop that the SIIA might like, there's always one remaining option: rewrite the law.
"There may be a point where we decide to go up to Congress and ask for legislation that would make eBay and other similar sites required to take what I would call 'preemptive and proactive steps' to prevent infringement on parts of their sites," Kuperfschmid said. "And if they didn't, they could be liable."
CNET News' Declan McCullagh contributed to this report
The mall stores being auctioners and the Mall owner being eBay. If eBay does find out that a store owner is doing wrong they do take action. They always have. The contention is that they don't do enough.
Now if that mall has say 250,000 stores with 1.5billion goods for sale the problem of forcing eBay to police everthing becomes apparent.
What does a library do if they find a counterfeit book?
One last thought. What the heck are the software makes doing to police their own ventures? Oh...that's right, they are suing others to force them to do the job for them...eBay should sue them for not doing their job and keeping eBay informed that all their auctiosn are legic.
clerocks (1517 ) View Listings | Report Jun-24-08 14:02 PDT 22 of 40
FROM A FORMER EBAY EMPLOYEE:
UNBELIEVEABLE!!
I posted this at the feedback forum at eBay but it was killed by staff less than a minute later. I should have known. My ID will be toast soon anyway. This was the only other place I thought where my statement might have an impact. Do with it what you will. After Chicago, my only desire is to be heard.
There will be those who will not believe me and I sympathize. I wish the facts were fiction but to deny what I know would be to live in a fairyland of make-believe. I understand that the bulk of this ?manifesto? reveals a plot so against the spirit of eBay that it will be dismissed as lie. So be it. I cannot force the world to accept it. All I can do is state the truth as I know it and leave it to you and to your common sense and experience to judge.
The deck is stacked against me. Aside from the natural resistance to believe I know that the boards are stocked with eBay?s tools. Their goal will be to discredit me. I will be accused of being a ?disgruntled?, ?paranoid?, and ?emotional? seller. Their words will be specially chosen for effect. That is part of the function of the tools and I am not fazed by it. However, to protect my own identity within the corporation, I cannot be too specific lest the details single me out to the powers that be.
What I intend to reveal is common knowledge to many in the management division behind the scenes.
By the way, the tools are not only the mouthpieces that promote the policies. The psychological tactics employed by the powers that be are far deeper and grander than that. The subtlety of the method is remarkable. The tools come in a wide range of flavors with their own, individual ?characteristic? rhetoric. From those who are ?for? the policy - and spread various degrees of hostility toward the sellers - to those who are ?against? the change - and spread panic and further the divide with the buyers. Both serve the same exact purpose: a manipulation designed to remove the more involved and savvy small to large sellers who will not fit into eBay?s future business plan.
First, let me correct the record regarding the concept of sellers extorting positive feedback. While the violation was known to happen, the activity amounted to less than a tenth of a percent of the yearly transactions. Further, it involved sellers whose feedback percentages were below 80%. The absolute majority of sellers did not engage in such practices. Nevertheless, the powers that be could not resist the fact that promoting this notion of feedback extortion as a wide-spread phenomenon would be the perfect cover with which to hide the true intentions of the policy.
The powers that be want to transform eBay into an overstock warehouse venue. A kind of outlet store for the internet much like a cheaper and streamlined version of Amazon. From a strictly business point of view, given the size of eBay and the growing costs of doing business, it makes a certain kind of sense to shift gears. Think about it: when eBay started, sellers were about rare and unique items but here and now the majority of items are common, used counterparts of what can be found new online at retail sites. Truly rare and unique items are sold at real auctions; the ?stuff in your attic? isn?t glamorous enough and won?t keep eBay afloat any longer.
The trend away from the rare and unique to the big box retailer is not new. Several years ago the powers that be noticed that the big ?powersellers? were simply listing items that existed in their retail stores or inventories. Thus the concept of ?buy it now?, ?best offer?, and ?eBay stores? were created. It was the nascent stage of the plan yet to be. Little by little, without the population noticing, the mechanisms required to replicate the average retail storefront were already in place - and with its rise came the slow, steady downfall of the auction format.
Yet outright pursuit of a retail venue would have led to a major problem that at the time could not have been surmounted. The vast majority of people, on and off line, know eBay as precisely the place for auctions of rare and unique items. The sellers and buyers held onto that perception too but in truth their opinion even involvement in new and improved version of eBay is irrelevant by a certain Machiavellian calculation made by the powers that be. As part of the plan, eBay calculated thus: even if they lost the sellers as part of the change, the buyers will be coming back to buy regardless of who or what operated within the retail-outlet venue.
No, it was the stock holders who the powers that be feared.
Only the stockholders had the power to change the direction set forth by the CEO and the board. So it became imperative to change the equation. Part of the plan is to devalue the stock gradually so that investors merely dumped the stock as opposed to wanting managerial change ala Yahoo. Then to buy back the stock at lower cost and to such a volume that no rebellion against the powers that be were possible.
By the end of July that phase of the plan will be successful and there est of the plan will be revealed without fear of backlash from those who otherwise would have had the power to pull eBay back from the brink.
Indeed, if you believe the current changes are obvious signals that small sellers are not wanted - be prepared - you have seen nothing yet.
So far what have they done? All they have managed to do is silence a seller?s ability to warn others about buyers (half of the purpose behind the original idea of feedback), burden you with higher and higher fees, dangle ?treats? like discounts while setting the bar of eligibility so high that the rewards cannot be reached. and, by the way PayPal deals with ?complaints? leave you vulnerable to fraud. What if worse was yet to come?
They know if you do not feel safe that you will not use eBay. The changes that have been enacted only eliminates the small sellers. Meanwhile they want to eradicate the mid-sized seller too. And they want to ensure that both do not return.
For the mid-sized seller the DSR became the tool of choice. The powers that be raised the level of what is a good seller artificially high. No manipulation is required; they know exactly the effect of the policy. This is why buyers are told that 4 is a good score and sellers are told that 4.9 yields discounts and higher listing placements. As long as that fractured point of view exists, eBay does not need to interfere with the DSR as has been suggested, the buyers will be killing the sellers naturally.
By August there will be no pretense and the intentions of the new and improved eBay will be clear. The following is only a partial list of the rules that will be imposed. It comes from a memo that circulated within my corner of the managerial department the week before Chicago. I cannot be too specific about certain items and I cannot reveal details of the latest additions without endangering my anonymity.
1. Neutrals will be converted to negatives complete with red icons and reduced feedback scores. Afterward neutrals will not be offered as a choice of feedback.
2. The entire process of feedback will be automated. Buyers and sellers will chose standard feedback from a list. For sellers this operation will be performed automatically upon the buyer winning. For buyers there will be an extra free line with which to add a few comments about the seller without restriction to content. Replies will not be allowed.
3. The implementation of a stricter rules regarding shipping. From the boxes, packing, labels and tapes to where you can buy postage. Orders have been placed for prototypes of ?eBay? boxes. UPS and FedEx will be instructed not to accept ?eBay? merchandise if it?s not inside ?eBay? boxing. They will know, of course, because when sellers buy the ?eBay? postage from the ?eBay? source, a detailed list of contents with item numbers will be available to the shippers upon scanning a bar code. As for those who continue to use USPS, another level of quality control will be implemented - buyers will be asked, upon confirmation of delivery, if the seller used ?eBay? standard shipping items. Naturally, no verification of the buyer?s truthfulness will be attempted, and continued ?infractions? will result in suspension. eBay will have other ways to check if a seller is not using the ?eBay? equipment - as they will be required to buy at cost the supplies immediately after items are listed. (This is such a large scale operation behind the scenes that I feel comfortable sharing as much of it as I know.)
4. Sales taxes will be included automatically; shipping cost and sales taxes will be used to determined FVF.
5. Item descriptions will be ?standardized? with templates which include the posting of a new, universal return policy. Only yearly subscribers to the retail-outlet venue can opt out of these universal return policies but even they cannot alter the template structures being devised.
6. Strikes against buyers will be eliminated as the whole concept of a buyer and bidding will be altered. FVF will be calculated when payment is submitted.
7. Time to Close will be eliminated entirely. Best Match will be the non-alterable default. Best Match is a system that caters to the needs of shoppers not bidders.
8. Placement within Best Match will be determined by several factors, the most important of which will be the extra display features added onto the listing.
9. DSRs can be removed by retailers and powersellers who pay a certain yearly fee.
10. The end play itself which consists of four phases:
a) the main focus shifts to retail sellers whose fees are on a per listing basis
b) stores will be replaced by a classified section, fees will be based on yearly subscriptions and FVFs
c) occasional auctions will be conducted for unique items (celebrity auctions, items that have been featured on the news, etc.)
d) total elimination of auctions for regular sellers.
From the point of view of eBay?s agenda to change gears these alteration make sense. The powers that be want to turn eBay into a retail venue format. Therefore the ?buyer? must be changed - bidding and commitments to buy are part of the past. In a retail venue, the item is either in your cart or not and you only commit to buy when you pay at checkout. The seller is also redefined in the way they will be required to do business. They will be forced to copy the methods of retail stores.
The goal is to become Amazon Lite. Unlike Amazon the merchandise will be stocked by the retailers in their warehouses, eBay will be just an electronic centralized venue for outlet sale - a ?trusted? name with a wide customer base and popular name recognition.
That is the future and as I write this I know that it cannot be stopped. There are no investors with enough clout and will to challenge the CEO. Stock holders will simply walk away. eBay will not sink, however, it will be exactly in the position its rulers intend it to be at.
Sellers, my advice is simple. You are not wanted. Leave. If you stay, you will be crushed. Leave. Go away. You cannot win.
I am sorry because for too long I have been a complicit tool behind the scenes. I was part of those teams and think tanks that spearheaded many of the ?innovations? you know very well and which will be used to destroy you. I know I will not be believed. I will be mocked and ridiculed by the tools and even those who are real, actual people will be hesitant to accept what I have to say. What has been done to this community, the plots and schemes hatched in meetings and across memos, is far, far worse to endure within my soul than any treatment I will receive at the hands of the tools by posting this. You do not know how much they hate you. It is my conscience that I want to clear going forward. Again I apologize. There should have been a better way for the powers that be to effect the change they wanted for eBay - instead they succumbed to cloak and dagger deception.
pinquecopinqueco (120 (120 ) View Listings | Report
Jul-24-08 22:38 PDT 3 of 4
eBay has turned their 'platform' into a dictatorship of how a business can operate leaving no room for a business to cater to their customers as a real store would. Small business owners are a different breed and don't take kindly to being herded.
homedecorstudioshomedecorstudios (23 (23 ) View Listings | Report
Jul-25-08 00:10 PDT 4 of 4
Two of them actually do have there own web sites and I am sure running own web site is easier compared to eBay but surely you can not do that kind of business on your own web site without paying for some sort of marketing\advertising on a on going basis.
I pay around 2-7k a month for 65-110K per month in sales. It's much cheaper to advertise with PPC ads & affiliate networks than to pay ebay fees.
And even if it was not costing that much more to run an off eBay web site why not have both ? an eBay and own web site business?
Because it's not worth the hassle.
Ebay sales have 3-4 times the emails, lower end prices, lower dollar amount per order, higher fees per sale, not to mention endless changes & glitches.
Think of it this way my average order is $46 I pay about $1.06 on average in advertising per order.
On ebay for that same order I would need to pay listing fees & FVF on the 2-5 items($5.52 just in store FVF). Not to mention unsold item fees.
Why would I pay $4-5 More for the exact same sale?
_____________________________________
Cake or Death?
clerocks (1517 ) View Listings | Report Jun-24-08 14:02 PDT 22 of 40
FROM A FORMER EBAY EMPLOYEE:
UNBELIEVEABLE!!
I posted this at the feedback forum at eBay but it was killed by staff less than a minute later. I should have known. My ID will be toast soon anyway. This was the only other place I thought where my statement might have an impact. Do with it what you will. After Chicago, my only desire is to be heard.
There will be those who will not believe me and I sympathize. I wish the facts were fiction but to deny what I know would be to live in a fairyland of make-believe. I understand that the bulk of this ?manifesto? reveals a plot so against the spirit of eBay that it will be dismissed as lie. So be it. I cannot force the world to accept it. All I can do is state the truth as I know it and leave it to you and to your common sense and experience to judge.
The deck is stacked against me. Aside from the natural resistance to believe I know that the boards are stocked with eBay?s tools. Their goal will be to discredit me. I will be accused of being a ?disgruntled?, ?paranoid?, and ?emotional? seller. Their words will be specially chosen for effect. That is part of the function of the tools and I am not fazed by it. However, to protect my own identity within the corporation, I cannot be too specific lest the details single me out to the powers that be.
What I intend to reveal is common knowledge to many in the management division behind the scenes.
By the way, the tools are not only the mouthpieces that promote the policies. The psychological tactics employed by the powers that be are far deeper and grander than that. The subtlety of the method is remarkable. The tools come in a wide range of flavors with their own, individual ?characteristic? rhetoric. From those who are ?for? the policy - and spread various degrees of hostility toward the sellers - to those who are ?against? the change - and spread panic and further the divide with the buyers. Both serve the same exact purpose: a manipulation designed to remove the more involved and savvy small to large sellers who will not fit into eBay?s future business plan.
First, let me correct the record regarding the concept of sellers extorting positive feedback. While the violation was known to happen, the activity amounted to less than a tenth of a percent of the yearly transactions. Further, it involved sellers whose feedback percentages were below 80%. The absolute majority of sellers did not engage in such practices. Nevertheless, the powers that be could not resist the fact that promoting this notion of feedback extortion as a wide-spread phenomenon would be the perfect cover with which to hide the true intentions of the policy.
The powers that be want to transform eBay into an overstock warehouse venue. A kind of outlet store for the internet much like a cheaper and streamlined version of Amazon. From a strictly business point of view, given the size of eBay and the growing costs of doing business, it makes a certain kind of sense to shift gears. Think about it: when eBay started, sellers were about rare and unique items but here and now the majority of items are common, used counterparts of what can be found new online at retail sites. Truly rare and unique items are sold at real auctions; the ?stuff in your attic? isn?t glamorous enough and won?t keep eBay afloat any longer.
The trend away from the rare and unique to the big box retailer is not new. Several years ago the powers that be noticed that the big ?powersellers? were simply listing items that existed in their retail stores or inventories. Thus the concept of ?buy it now?, ?best offer?, and ?eBay stores? were created. It was the nascent stage of the plan yet to be. Little by little, without the population noticing, the mechanisms required to replicate the average retail storefront were already in place - and with its rise came the slow, steady downfall of the auction format.
Yet outright pursuit of a retail venue would have led to a major problem that at the time could not have been surmounted. The vast majority of people, on and off line, know eBay as precisely the place for auctions of rare and unique items. The sellers and buyers held onto that perception too but in truth their opinion even involvement in new and improved version of eBay is irrelevant by a certain Machiavellian calculation made by the powers that be. As part of the plan, eBay calculated thus: even if they lost the sellers as part of the change, the buyers will be coming back to buy regardless of who or what operated within the retail-outlet venue.
No, it was the stock holders who the powers that be feared.
Only the stockholders had the power to change the direction set forth by the CEO and the board. So it became imperative to change the equation. Part of the plan is to devalue the stock gradually so that investors merely dumped the stock as opposed to wanting managerial change ala Yahoo. Then to buy back the stock at lower cost and to such a volume that no rebellion against the powers that be were possible.
By the end of July that phase of the plan will be successful and there est of the plan will be revealed without fear of backlash from those who otherwise would have had the power to pull eBay back from the brink.
Indeed, if you believe the current changes are obvious signals that small sellers are not wanted - be prepared - you have seen nothing yet.
So far what have they done? All they have managed to do is silence a seller?s ability to warn others about buyers (half of the purpose behind the original idea of feedback), burden you with higher and higher fees, dangle ?treats? like discounts while setting the bar of eligibility so high that the rewards cannot be reached. and, by the way PayPal deals with ?complaints? leave you vulnerable to fraud. What if worse was yet to come?
They know if you do not feel safe that you will not use eBay. The changes that have been enacted only eliminates the small sellers. Meanwhile they want to eradicate the mid-sized seller too. And they want to ensure that both do not return.
For the mid-sized seller the DSR became the tool of choice. The powers that be raised the level of what is a good seller artificially high. No manipulation is required; they know exactly the effect of the policy. This is why buyers are told that 4 is a good score and sellers are told that 4.9 yields discounts and higher listing placements. As long as that fractured point of view exists, eBay does not need to interfere with the DSR as has been suggested, the buyers will be killing the sellers naturally.
By August there will be no pretense and the intentions of the new and improved eBay will be clear. The following is only a partial list of the rules that will be imposed. It comes from a memo that circulated within my corner of the managerial department the week before Chicago. I cannot be too specific about certain items and I cannot reveal details of the latest additions without endangering my anonymity.
1. Neutrals will be converted to negatives complete with red icons and reduced feedback scores. Afterward neutrals will not be offered as a choice of feedback.
2. The entire process of feedback will be automated. Buyers and sellers will chose standard feedback from a list. For sellers this operation will be performed automatically upon the buyer winning. For buyers there will be an extra free line with which to add a few comments about the seller without restriction to content. Replies will not be allowed.
3. The implementation of a stricter rules regarding shipping. From the boxes, packing, labels and tapes to where you can buy postage. Orders have been placed for prototypes of ?eBay? boxes. UPS and FedEx will be instructed not to accept ?eBay? merchandise if it?s not inside ?eBay? boxing. They will know, of course, because when sellers buy the ?eBay? postage from the ?eBay? source, a detailed list of contents with item numbers will be available to the shippers upon scanning a bar code. As for those who continue to use USPS, another level of quality control will be implemented - buyers will be asked, upon confirmation of delivery, if the seller used ?eBay? standard shipping items. Naturally, no verification of the buyer?s truthfulness will be attempted, and continued ?infractions? will result in suspension. eBay will have other ways to check if a seller is not using the ?eBay? equipment - as they will be required to buy at cost the supplies immediately after items are listed. (This is such a large scale operation behind the scenes that I feel comfortable sharing as much of it as I know.)
4. Sales taxes will be included automatically; shipping cost and sales taxes will be used to determined FVF.
5. Item descriptions will be ?standardized? with templates which include the posting of a new, universal return policy. Only yearly subscribers to the retail-outlet venue can opt out of these universal return policies but even they cannot alter the template structures being devised.
6. Strikes against buyers will be eliminated as the whole concept of a buyer and bidding will be altered. FVF will be calculated when payment is submitted.
7. Time to Close will be eliminated entirely. Best Match will be the non-alterable default. Best Match is a system that caters to the needs of shoppers not bidders.
8. Placement within Best Match will be determined by several factors, the most important of which will be the extra display features added onto the listing.
9. DSRs can be removed by retailers and powersellers who pay a certain yearly fee.
10. The end play itself which consists of four phases:
a) the main focus shifts to retail sellers whose fees are on a per listing basis
b) stores will be replaced by a classified section, fees will be based on yearly subscriptions and FVFs
c) occasional auctions will be conducted for unique items (celebrity auctions, items that have been featured on the news, etc.)
d) total elimination of auctions for regular sellers.
From the point of view of eBay?s agenda to change gears these alteration make sense. The powers that be want to turn eBay into a retail venue format. Therefore the ?buyer? must be changed - bidding and commitments to buy are part of the past. In a retail venue, the item is either in your cart or not and you only commit to buy when you pay at checkout. The seller is also redefined in the way they will be required to do business. They will be forced to copy the methods of retail stores.
The goal is to become Amazon Lite. Unlike Amazon the merchandise will be stocked by the retailers in their warehouses, eBay will be just an electronic centralized venue for outlet sale - a ?trusted? name with a wide customer base and popular name recognition.
That is the future and as I write this I know that it cannot be stopped. There are no investors with enough clout and will to challenge the CEO. Stock holders will simply walk away. eBay will not sink, however, it will be exactly in the position its rulers intend it to be at.
Sellers, my advice is simple. You are not wanted. Leave. If you stay, you will be crushed. Leave. Go away. You cannot win.
I am sorry because for too long I have been a complicit tool behind the scenes. I was part of those teams and think tanks that spearheaded many of the ?innovations? you know very well and which will be used to destroy you. I know I will not be believed. I will be mocked and ridiculed by the tools and even those who are real, actual people will be hesitant to accept what I have to say. What has been done to this community, the plots and schemes hatched in meetings and across memos, is far, far worse to endure within my soul than any treatment I will receive at the hands of the tools by posting this. You do not know how much they hate you. It is my conscience that I want to clear going forward. Again I apologize. There should have been a better way for the powers that be to effect the change they wanted for eBay - instead they succumbed to cloak and dagger deception.
pinquecopinqueco (120 (120 ) View Listings | Report
Jul-24-08 22:38 PDT 3 of 4
eBay has turned their 'platform' into a dictatorship of how a business can operate leaving no room for a business to cater to their customers as a real store would. Small business owners are a different breed and don't take kindly to being herded.
homedecorstudioshomedecorstudios (23 (23 ) View Listings | Report
Jul-25-08 00:10 PDT 4 of 4
Two of them actually do have there own web sites and I am sure running own web site is easier compared to eBay but surely you can not do that kind of business on your own web site without paying for some sort of marketing\advertising on a on going basis.
I pay around 2-7k a month for 65-110K per month in sales. It's much cheaper to advertise with PPC ads & affiliate networks than to pay ebay fees.
And even if it was not costing that much more to run an off eBay web site why not have both ? an eBay and own web site business?
Because it's not worth the hassle.
Ebay sales have 3-4 times the emails, lower end prices, lower dollar amount per order, higher fees per sale, not to mention endless changes & glitches.
Think of it this way my average order is $46 I pay about $1.06 on average in advertising per order.
On ebay for that same order I would need to pay listing fees & FVF on the 2-5 items($5.52 just in store FVF). Not to mention unsold item fees.
Why would I pay $4-5 More for the exact same sale?
_____________________________________
Cake or Death?
I bought a phone. It wasn't unlocked like it should be. I contacted the seller. No responce. I tried again. No responce. Finally I said "to heck with it" and left negative feedback. Now I get a responce. The first thing they ask for is "take back the negative feedback and we will fix your problem". Sorry but they needed to fix the problem when I first told them about it. After an hour on the phone and countless emails they never fixed the problem. When we both gave up (me giving up on them fixing the problem and them giving up on me changing my feedback) they left retaliation feedback. Funny I paid, quickly and they still have my money.
Later I had a friend call the cell provider and get an unlock code. The problem had a simple fix. The seller though was stuck on bad service. A review of their feedback revealed that quite a few people had to leave negative feedback to get a problem fixed, and then gave in to pressure to remove it. The way feedback works though is that if the seller still refused to fix their problem the feedback can't be updated back to negative.
That means the software is fake!
That means I can write the following and call it Microsoft Office.
100 cls
110 print" Hello WORLD!"
120 end
Please call it what it really is. Piracy.
Its called First Sale Doctrine and it has already been tested in court. You are allow to resell software you have legally purchased regardless of the EULA.
I log on and now I see a message from e-bay telling me that if I don't increase my seller score my account will be disabled and scrubbed. I was shocked because the only feedback left for me was positive or neutral. The only problem was 1 negative and I worked it out with the buyer. He actually said he was unable to change his feedback to positive after I refunded his money. They only gave me 30 days and to be honest I don't have any of the collectibles to sell right now. It is more of a hobby and I hand paint miniature figures so it takes me some time.
Also, the fees have gone up considerably and I've found some inconsistencies in billing.
If anyone knows another auction site let me know. Bidtopia and ubid were good options. I'm pretty fed up with e-bay and want to let them know if they keep pushing I will never buy or sell from ebay again and will be sure to tell everyone I know to do the same.
EBAY....we don't need you. Remember that! In this exchange, we are the customer. I like Amazon better anyhow and you can't even protect buyers from counterfeits and fakes. If a working e-bay employee is reading, feel free to respond.
This issues doesn't matter anyways since the only people selling software are small time players- i.e. individuals. Big corporations that buy tens of thousands of licenses don't want to risk subscription agreements by reselling the licensed software.
SIIA "patrols" and "flags" ANY ebay seller listing that has ANY software under their guard. Regardless if its legit or not, they will monitor you, VeRO you and delist, without hesitation. No matter how legitimate the listing.
UNLESS...now here's the kicker, you apply for their "Certified Reseller" status. Explain this to me. Tell me why I, a legit ebay seller/buyer, needs this? Apparently, even buying software and not opening it (past return date) precludes you to being screwed.
Die ebay. die. You want to move from a venue to a box, go for it. I'll shop at Amazon, and others without you getting a dime. And Adobe/SIIA can go jump. Your software loss is a landfill's gain.
Since the story also points out that eBay already does that (to the tune of $5-mil a year, isn't the SIIA just pi$$ing into the wind?
It sounds like the SIIA just wants eBay to do their work for them. There is no way eBay can know 100% of the time if software is counterfeit or not.
paul613 -- Did you report the sellers to eBay for selling you counterfeit software? I've never had to use it, but I thought eBay / PayPal offered fraud protection so you could get your money back.
Minoda -- If a retail seller in a mall was caught selling counterfeit goods, they would be prosecuted (and probably kicked out of the mall by the mall's management because the merchant committed a crime) -- but it would be up to the police (or FBI) to take care of that. It's not the mall owner's responsibility to go through all the merchandise of every shop in the mall and determine if any of it is counterfeit. I've worked in several retail stores in malls and I've never seen the mall's management going store-to-store asking for verification of merchandise's authenticity. I'm sure if a customer complained to the mall's management about a store selling counterfeit merchandise that the mall's management would contact the police to handle it -- not just kick the merchant out of the mall without an investigation or proof.
I'm not a fan of eBay, but I don't see that they've done anything wrong in this case. And for anyone that thinks I'm biased toward them, here's full disclosure -- I do buy stuff there occasionally and I have sold stuff there years ago, but I'm not big on buying stuff sight-unseen from someone I don't know -- I do not and have never worked for eBay or anyone associated with eBay.
That's ebay for ya!
- by as901 July 26, 2008 4:32 AM PDT
- You are allowed to resell software you have legally purchased regardless of the EULA. That has been the court rulings, but companies such as Microsoft will still block update of any kind. What we have is companies creating their own laws!
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(19 Comments)Mark Heinemann