I have a friend who is a very accomplished artist. His work has been shown in galleries in New York and Massachusetts. He began selling some of his work on eBay a few years ago, and much to his chagrin, he discovered that other people were making bad copies of his work and selling the copies on eBay. Some of the copies even still showed his signature! He complained to eBay, but he said they told him they could do nothing about it. I was floored to hear this! I said, if you file a complaint, and eBay does nothing about it, and they make money off of these copies, that makes eBay complicit in the intellectual property right infringment. I could not believe eBay would not be all over this sort of thing like white on rice.
I also heard of a similar infrigement. There is a seller on eBay that makes inexpensive jewellery using photos. A buyer asked if the seller could make a piece for them using their own personal photo, and the seller said, yes, send me the photo, and I will make the piece for you. Photo was sent; custom product was made; buyer purchased the custom made product. Later, buyer discovered the seller had continued to use the buyer's very private and personal photo to make more jewellery to sell on eBay. The buyer complained to eBay and was told nothing could be done about it. Once again, I was appalled to hear that eBay would do nothing. If the buyer alone created the photo and paid someone to make use it for a one off custom piece of jewellery, why would ebay not clobber a seller for continuning to use it? How would anyone at eBay like it if a photo of their child or grandchild or whatever was being prostituted by someone to put money in their pocket?
I am sure if I continue to talk to other eBayers about this, I will learn of other stories, too. Why oh why does almight eBay claim impotence these matters? Does anyone know if a class action suit for this sort of thing has been filed against eBay ever? Something should be done. This should NEVER be tolerated.
Taking credit for someone else's creation is tantamount to copying answers off of another test taker's paper. It is cheating. Anyone caught cheating receives an F and is usually suspended and even expelled, and this pertains to any exam anywhere from grade school through univeristy as well as in entrace tests such as the GMAT, GRE, LSAT, etc., etc. Cheating is simply not tolerated, except perhaps one eBay. I, for one, want honest answers as to why eBay would tolerate this dishonesty. The person(s) who do use someone else's work to make money or for any other reason are just as likely to rob your home or car or anything else if they knew where you lived. They are theives, criminals, plain and simple, and if they robbed your home or vandalised your automobile and police caught them, they would go to JAIL. Ebay does not even have to put in the sort of effort police do to catch the thieves. All eBay has to do is to not let them list anyone on eBay. What is so complicated about stopping intellectual property rights infringment?
