This ass who goes by the name  "custom_specialists" sells illegal bootleg CDs!  He says he sells 'Final Fantasy and other Original Game Soundtracks imported from Japan.'  which is BS, just take a look at what he's selling (I know many of you have seen this scum before)!  Now, what I'm wondering is, if everyone on this website complains to ebay about this seller, would they do something?  Any thoughts...

-avatar!

It would be a losing battle.

I tried this before.  They won't do SH*T.  They don't care about fraud, and they don't care about bootlegs.  That is, unless they somehow became an honest company without anybody knowing about it.  Get this:  One time I was watching a particular seller, who lied about a bootleg being a Japanese import, so when somebody won the auction, I emailed that buyer and let them know.  They thanked me, and told the seller they wouldn't pay because of what they were told.  The seller asked that buyer for my email with the full header as a condition of letting him not buy it.  Then the f*cking seller reported me to ebay, and I GOT IN TROUBLE, even though I had contacted egay's SafeHarbor dozens of times about the illegal auctions of his.  This is a prime example of how ebay does business.  Platinum sellers get away with anything because they make egay money.

Yeah, well, for someone so eager to report others, you have a problem following the rules yourself.
The rule you broke was eBay's "auction interference" rule.  If you have not participated in a transaction, you are not permitted to contact a bidder.

I'll report a bunch of those custom specialist auctions and see if anything happens.  I agree that it's a blatant case of copyright infringement.  However, if the original copyright holder has not contacted eBay and said they don't want non-obvious reproductions of their stuff up there (for example, obvious reproductions would be a guy selling a binder of CD-Rs, saying explicitly that they're copies, etc), I don't think eBay's obligated to do anything.

I must have been using ebay long before you.  You used to be able to contact any user through the email form.  Besides, since the auction broke ebay's listing policy, I was not interfering in a valid auction.  Of course, ebay only cares about profit, so they change their rules to suit their own interests.

Whether or not they feel obligated, there are laws they are subjected to.  Getting them to care will take legal threats by somebody with the power to press the charges, ie. the copyright holder, as you suggested.  Continuing to break the law just because they don't get in trouble for something doesn't make it right.

It's not a matter of what you can do, but are allowed to. You CAN drive 120MPH on the highway. but it's still illegal. Likewise, no matter what the auction is, it's still against Ebay rules to contact other members and warn them off that way.

-Joshua

Ignorance of the rules is no excuse to break them.

Furthermore, I'd appreciate it if you didn't get into a pissing match with me.

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d … =-1&de=off  <- What, suspended for feedback trading?  I honestly didn't expect to see that when I looked up your handle.

On the other hand, see here:

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d … =-1&de=off

Member since March 1998.  Do a little research before you spout off, please.

Pissing match or not, I was just correcting you.  Regardless of what ebay allows NOW, what I said held true for when I did it.

I don't care about ebay's stupid little rules when there are more pressing issues such as FEDERAL LAW and MORALITY.  I knew it was one of their little rules, but I have morals and I know what the law is, so I let the buyer know he was scammed.  I leave it at that.  Ebay continues to assert they should remain a lawless entity that is only there as a host to collect fees and is responsible to no one.

I don't know where it says I was feedback trading, but the real reason they banned me was because I made an extra account and bid on that guy's fraudulent auctions, and refused to pay since he was defrauding me.  Since my original account was registered with a card under the same name at the same bank as that 2nd account, both accounts were automatically closed, since they were "linked accounts".  With a current 100% positive feedback rating of 180 from 94 different sellers, it's safe to say I was a model ebay member.  I was fair with my feedback and rarely had to leave nasty comments.  I just hate when scammers try to rip people off.  If that makes me a bad guy, then so be it.  Even if ebay eventually approached me and offered to let me back, I would refuse.  I find their business practices dispicable, and I can get what I want elsewhere for comparable prices.

For the record, I have reported hundreds of auctions to SafeHarbor, and I personally cannot recall one instance where an offending auction was taken down.  One time I chatted with their staff for over an hour, and a supervisor for at least half an hour.  Eventually, he asked me why I cared so much.  That right there is the way they feel about it.  One of the emails I received from SafeHarbor when I was hounding them about closing bootleg auctions stated in these exact words more or less:  "The matter will not be looked into".

I can't understand why ebay won't shut down bootleg auctions when reported, while one of my own auction was shut down once because I wrote PS1 and PS2 in a title for a PS1 game. I mean technicaly PS1 games can be played on PS2 also... anyways I was reported and my auction was shut down for false advertising or something.

Now when someone sells illegal bootlegs and pretends they are authentic japanese, that's not false representation? However I still think "official" bootlegs like Son May and Everanime should be tolerated when they are advertised as so, evenmore so when the originals are out of print. It's not like those bootlegs are preventing the original music labels from making money then.

Instead of trying to get ebay to shut these down ourselves, we instead should be petitioning the copyright holders to take action and communicate with eBay what constitutes a legitimate item as opposed to a bootleg.

Any idea where to start?

First, let me say I would be very interested to hear if anyone can have ebay cancel "custom_specialists" bootleg auctions.  However, I feel this is unlikely.   In fact,  I must agree with much of what raynebc has said.   It seems to me that ebay is primarily (or is it solely?) interested in their money, and unless someone with authority (ie an ability to sue and win) complains, why would they shut down someone who is making them lots of money?  This guys bootleg auctions have given ebay hundreds of dollars in the past year...and not many people have complained.  The question becomes, is it possible to get the record manufactorers involved?  Is there anyone in Japan that a)has the answer or b)is willing to look for an answer?  That's about the only solution I can think of.

Also, in terms of ebay rules, again I have to agree with raynebc.  Ebay can make it's only rules, however if it violates state or Federal laws, then ebay must hold itself accountable.  Of course, they do tend to uphold those laws, but only with lots and lots of loopholes...for instance, "ebay is completely opposed to the selling of illegal bootlegs, but if someone happens to be selling those and ebay doesn't know, well that's not ebays fault!"  I agree, they are very scummy.

-avatar!

And they won't invest time in looking into Taiwanese bootlegs because they are ignorant about them to begin with, and they too lazy to discover the truth.  But like avatar! said, if they are approached by a legal threat, they start sweating, and then they take action.  I wrote a letter to SafeHarbor and sent it Certified mail protesting their lax stance towards imported bootlegs, citing specific sellers, auction numbers, and referring to sources that substantiate my claim they were bootlegs.  They never took the time to write back, they probably shredded the letter as soon as they read enough to see it was yet another gripe message.

As for getting a copyright holder involved, I tried contacting an American anime licensing company once to tell them a seller was selling LOTS of fansubs of their licensed material.  I never heard back, and the seller was never shut down.  The copyright holders are too busy and ebay is too greedy to stop all the people violating copyright law.  And ebay doesn't allow members to contact other members about it, so the only thing that can be done is to educate the buyers outside of ebay.  On that note, there are one or more bootleg blacklists that keep track of these sellers.  A good one can be found at Chudah's Corner:

http://www.chudahs-corner.com/reference … ootleggers

You will notice the seller that I fought with and got banned over is listed (sphiatt).

I think having a bootleg blacklist is good, however it doesn't get enough attention!  Also, people can change their user id, so that is not good.  What I think we need is a page specifically devoted to bootlegs with links to ebay users.  Hmmm, maybe www.bootlegblacklist.com
or such thing.  Thoughts?

-avatar!

Once she's back I'll ask Kahori Ezaki if someone could contact eBay over this issue on behalf of VGMWorld/Cocoebiz and its represented artists/companies.

Having a business contact ebay has a better shot, but I still won't hold my breath.  As for changed ID's, the seller profile page provides a user ID history, which will reveal if he/she is a blacklisted bootlegger.  Changing the username will slip by some people, but the people who know to check won't be caught off guard.

"Instead of trying to get ebay to shut these down ourselves, we instead should be petitioning the copyright holders to take action and communicate with eBay what constitutes a legitimate item as opposed to a bootleg.

Any idea where to start?"

I think Amber is right... eBay is not going to do anything unless they are contacted by the companies themselves.  And since eBay doesn't know who Digicube, Pony Canyon, those companies are, they're not going to feel forced to do anything as they would if it was Sony, Columbia, Capitol... etc.  But then again, from what I've heard Japanese copyright law is lax, so maybe the original holders won't understand or care.

No, it's not that at all. Basically, the copyright holder simply makes a sworn statement that the auction violates it, and it's taken down.

This can be abused itself, of course...

-Joshua

Given that the Japanese media companies don't really seem to care about the issue, if you want to do something about this guy, it's going to take a very creative solution.

One solution might be to beat him at his own game -- find out the albums he's copying and selling, and fill the auction category with the same ones, but price them at a buck or something to cover media cost.  He won't be able to sell his 25$ CDRs when there are 1$ ones right next to them, and he'll be forced to find alternative means to make free money.

I'm not sure how comfortable I'd feel with that, but it'd work.