Counterfeit or not?
Trying to re sell an item I bought on Ebay, but my listing has been removed as counterfeit. Does this count as an admission of guilt that the company did not exercise due care and are responsible for my purchase of an illegal item? Concensus seems to be that the item is unofficial but not illegal. Where is the consistency in this process?
21 comments
tools*
·1 year agoHow long has it been since you bought it on eBay? Did you pay with a credit card?
slippinjimmy
·1 year agoWhat does it matter? The OP bought it because they wanted it, if they are even a casual Bowie fan they knew what it was.
simply-the-best-for-you
·1 year agoSome artists are good with bootlegs & actually even encourage them & others are not, it just depends. I can why eBay would consider them counterfeit, but some artists very much encourage bootlegs. I don't think the Bowie estate is one that encourages boots. You might check Discogs & see what their policy is on bootlegs. Bootlegs are a gray area as they are not technically counterfeits, they are more like alternate recordings. The only time I'd consider them a true counterfeit is if the artist themselves released a CD or album of that specific show.
ETA: If it's the estate going after it b/c they don't want boots, then you'll likely have the same result anywhere you try to sell it.
slippinjimmy
·1 year agoThe Bowie Estate is irrelevant, they do not control his copyrights which are currently owned by Warner Chapell. Warner bought the rights in 2022 for 250 Million Dollars.
The same is true for many major artists, it's the publishers that control the rights and go after people selling bootlegs rather than the artists themselves who have little or no input in these matters.
farmalljr
·1 year agoLook, eBay has some duty to ferret out fakes. If one seller is allowed to sell something and the buyer later on is not allowed because eBay deems it "fake" , then eBay should have the responsibility to refund the original buyer in whole. eBay has made "improvements" over a period of time to remove fakes from the site, right? Well it should be on eBay to cover buyers when they get duped.
If I buy something in good faith for $100 today and 6 months later it increases in value to $200, and I decide to sell it here, what impression does it make of THIS platform, if eBay were to take down my listing as a "fake"? We have all seen the problems that have happened repeatedly with the "authenticators" that eBay uses/owns. Point being as eBay takes over more and more of the sellers sales, and controls more and more, why is ANYONE making excuses why eBay should have no responsibility? I don't care if they are employing AI or people, eBay owns this. If it's fake now, it was fake then. A buyer has been scammed, and eBay is responsible.
brogdonius
OP1 year agoTotally agree. For example after being notified of my listing removal I informed eBay of multiple Coda listings with similar "grey area" items. About half were taken down but others were noted as not breaking policy. They simply don't have the knowledge or expertise to make these decisions.
soh.maryl
·1 year agoWhen you mention that "the company did not exercise due care", assuming you're referring to eBay, you do realize that no one employed by eBay ever sees most items listed for sale here. When a buyer makes a purchase from a seller, with most items, the purchased item is shipped directly from the seller to the buyer.
What was the item?
brogdonius
OP1 year agoThe item was a 4cd set by David Bowie on the Coda Publishing label. I'm aware of the fact that eBay is merely a platform buy my point is they have identified the item as counterfeit but failed to do so when I purchased it. My research suggests that items on said label may be unofficial bit not illegal, certainly not in Europe where they are classed as public domain. In short it seems wrong to prevent my selling it on ebay when I bought it on ebay in the first place.
albertabrightalberta
·1 year agoThere are approximately 1.7 billion active ebay listings and over 13 million CD listings. It's impossible for ebay to weed out every (or even most) illegal items.
The listing from which you purchased wasn't caught but your listing was.
As a seller, it's your responsibility to verify authenticity of any item that you aren't 100% positive is authentic.
stainlessenginecovers
·1 year agoThe way these 'takedowns' work is that typically like this:
A VERO (Verified Rights Owner) member, or their rep (typically law students working for a law firm hired to peruse 3rd Party Market Places) and have 'unauthorized' items 'taken down'.
They only allow their 'chosen' sellers to sell their item.
Ebay has created VERO so that members can have items removed that are being sold on this site and they typically just use the 'counterfeit' statement across the board, if you are not an authorized seller, it could be and that's all that matters (to Ebay and the VERO member).
The person you bought it from could
a.) have been authorized
b.) just wasn't 'caught'.
So, what you do now is forget about it and sell it elsewhere.
tobaccocardyahoo
·1 year agoIf you try to sell it elsewhere, make sure elsewhere is not Amazon.
Amazon will close your account for offering a bootleg.
kensgiftshop
·1 year agoSome countries don't have a problem selling counterfeit items, look at China.
albertabrightalberta
·1 year agoWhat was the item?
brogdonius
OP1 year agoIt was a David Bowie cd set on the Coda Publishing label. I know it does attract some controversy about unofficial as opposed to illegal.
albertabrightalberta
·1 year agoI asked Google whether "an unofficial CD is considered a fake" and this was the response:
powell-collectibles
·1 year agoIt isn’t legal. Hey, I like bootlegs, and buy plenty of them. Absolutely, you can find them on eBay. Eventually, those sellers face restrictions, sometimes permanent selling rights revocation. There are sites that are better for selling boots.
you were probably caught because of some wording you put in the description of the item or the title. Or, maybe eBay is just getting better and identifying bootlegs. They are much better – is much harder to find boots on this site than it was even just a few years ago.
brogdonius
OP1 year agoI get that but it's getting harder to identify a lot of this "grey area" stuff, and most of it is readily available on Amazon or Facebook. Is there a site you'd recommend for selling this stuff without being sent to the naughty step?
krazzykats
·1 year agoUse a bing search for "sites you can sell gray items on."
powell-collectibles
·1 year agoDon’t get me wrong, eBay still has the best traffic for selling and buying boots, in my opinion. Places like Mercari, bonanza, Etsy are better for not getting caught. But, you’ll get less money on those sites, much less traffic. Problem with eBay is that they are better at weeding out, identifying boots. If it is a risk you wanna take, you can make a pretty good amount of money and not that long of a time. Provided you don’t get nabbed. I would love to unload an 84 disc get back sessions set that I have – But not worth the risk on eBay.
kensgiftshop
·1 year agoIf it's counterfeit, it's illegal to sell it anywhere.
kensgiftshop
·1 year agoIt's pretty much the same thing, counterfeit.