Slightly OT: Tiffany vs eBay

SYRACUSIAN

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In 2004, Tiffany secretly purchased about 200 items from eBay in its investigation of how the company was dealing with the thousands of pieces of counterfeit Tiffany jewelry. The jeweler found that three out of four pieces were fakes.

The case will go to trial by the end of this year, said James B. Swire, an attorney with Arnold & Porter, a law firm representing Tiffany. The legal question — whether eBay is a facilitator of fraud — is a critical issue that could affect not only eBay's future but Internet commerce generally, said Thomas Hemnes, a lawyer in Boston who specializes in intellectual property.

"If eBay lost, or even if they settled and word got out that they settled, it would mean they would have to begin policing things sold over eBay, which would directly affect their business model," Mr. Hemnes said. "The cost implied is tremendous."



Seeing Fakes, Angry Traders Confront EBay

ajaan

eBay will just say they are just a vehicle for the tansaction, they do not own the item so therefore they are not liable for non-genuine items.

SYRACUSIAN

That's exactly what they say:

EBay, based in San Jose, Calif., argues that it has no obligation to investigate counterfeiting claims unless the complaint comes from a "rights owner," a party holding a trademark or copyright. A mere buyer who believes an item is a fake has almost no recourse.

"We never take possession of the goods sold through eBay, and we don't have any expertise," said Hani Durzy, an eBay spokesman. "We're not clothing experts. We're not car experts, and we're not jewelry experts. We're experts at building a marketplace and bringing buyers and sellers together."

spoon

I have a feeling that a settlement in this is near guaranteed. Look at other cases involving internet transactions: a disclaimer doesn't remove responsibility for obvious infringements. The music sharing cases are proof enough of this.

Aethelred

This could be very interesting!

Steve27

Since ebay does remove some listings for fake material, they may actually have opened themselves up to liability in this case.

AuldFartte

<< <i>Since ebay does remove some listings for fake material, they may actually have opened themselves up to liability in this case. >>



Exactly !!!
I hope they get nailed good.

Sylvestius

Do you know the way to San Jose?


No but one day someone will.

ccrdragon

Steve27 hit this one squarely on the head and from what I have heard about the case, the argument that Tiffany's is presenting is that since ebay does this in some cases they should be required to do it in all cases.

If the court decides to rule in Taffany's favor and try to force enforcement onto ebay, the internet auction market will totally collapse because enforcement is a basic impossibility - if you don't believe me, just talk to customs and see how much effort they already spend trying to keep look-alikes out of this country and about how miserably they are failing at the task.

Another option is that ebay will reach an agreement with the court and with Tiffany's that will put some of the Tiffany staff on retainer to help detect the fakes and shut down the auctions as fast as they can.

I think that with someone as large as Tiffany's (with a reputation to protect and resources to protect that reputation), ebay will not be allowed to skate with the argument that they are just the venue and are not responsible for what gets listed on thier site.

I personally hope that the second option is reached because that will open the door to other experts being put on retainer and could help clean-up the cesspool that ebay has become for frauds and rip-offs (esp where we are concerned in the coin markets).

Coindexter

I know there are a lot of crooks on eBay and they have a negative impact on our hobby, but I actually hope eBay wins this case outright. If they settle or loose the costs of policing auctions will fall squarely on the users, making it even harder to score a good rip or sell an item at a profit.

newbiecollector

Personally I accept ebay's arguement. I, for very personal reasons, appreciate ebay very much.
I do not sell on ebay or buy expensive items (read coins), but that is only because I can't afford to do it.

I buy quite a lot of "gifts" for friends and can have them shipped directly to them. With me being located outside the USA and most friends in the USA it is a big bonus for me.

After all that self arguement, I still say, that ebay is straight forward in it's policy statement and as far as I am concerned (personaly again), they are NOT at fault.

SYRACUSIAN

Wayne, I understand and respect your point of view, but ebay is not exactly innocent here.

EBay makes a lot of money from a lot of small unhappy transactions," said Ina Steiner, the editor and publisher of AuctionBytes.com, an online newsletter. "If you've lost a few thousand dollars, you might go the extra mile to recover it. But if you've lost $50 or $20 you may never be able to prove your case, and in the meantime eBay has gotten the listing fee and the closing fee on that transaction."

The Tiffany lawsuit, in addition to accusing eBay of facilitating counterfeiting, also contends that it "charges hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees" for counterfeit sales.


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The frustrating part is that eBay just stands back and lets these people make thousands and thousands of dollars" while taking a fee for each transaction, Ms. Rogers said. (The company's profits rose 36 percent in the last quarter from the year before, to $279.2 million.)

After the spectacular case in 2000 when a fake Richard Diebenkorn painting was nearly sold for $135,000 on eBay, the company put in place a handful of safeguards, like the PayPal buyer protection plan, an improved system for spotting eBay policy violations, and improved detection of fraud in general. But when it comes to counterfeit goods, the problem has gotten worse.

Artwork is particularly vulnerable to counterfeiting. "The majority of things that appear on eBay are fakes," said Joel Garzoli, an art gallery owner in San Rafael, Calif.




Ebay charges the listing fees no matter what and they have made refunds a very complicated procedure in order to discourage the efforts for this. I'm in a similar situation right now, because of a non paying bidder, I sincerely doubt that I'll start the time consuming procedure to get back the listing and final value fees of a $135 unpaid coin,because I'm not convinced it's worth the effort .



That said, I too admit that I'm not sure I would like Tiffany to win this case and many members have expressed very interesting points in this thread.Besides, coins are perhaps a rare privileged category of collectables,(unlike artwork), where they demand to mention replicas or fakes in the titles of the listings .