Counterfeit or not?

[brogdonius]

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?

[kensgiftshop]

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@brogdonius wrote:

The 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.

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Some countries don't have a problem selling counterfeit items, look at China.

[kensgiftshop]

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@brogdonius wrote:

I 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?

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If it's counterfeit, it's illegal to sell it anywhere.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

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@stainlessenginecovers wrote:

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So, what you do now is forget about it and sell it elsewhere. 

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If you try to sell it elsewhere, make sure elsewhere is not Amazon.

Amazon will close your account for offering a bootleg.

[simply-the-best-for-you]

Some 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.

[tools*]

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@brogdonius wrote:

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?

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How long has it been since you bought it on eBay? Did you pay with a credit card?

[slippinjimmy]

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@tools* wrote:

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How long has it been since you bought it on eBay? Did you pay with a credit card?

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What does it matter? The OP bought it because they wanted it, if they are even a casual Bowie fan they knew what it was.

[slippinjimmy]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

Some 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.

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The 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.