How EBay Handles Copyright Infringement

Imagine that you are an author and some totally irresponsible, opportunistic dunderhead has been selling all your in-copyright e-books in a collection of... lets say, 199,000 e-books for Kindle. He has also published statements on his listing that your ebooks are in the public domain and free to sell or share.

He has sold hundreds of these DVDs over the years. Then, someone catches him.

Here's how honest EBay protects your rights as an infringed author. This is the message they send to anyone who may not yet have received the DVDs containing your works.

Dear ...... (buyer's name)

We'd like to let you know that eBay has ended an item you were bidding on for breaching of one or more of our policies. As it's important that eBay maintains member privacy, we can't tell you exactly why the listing was removed.

Any offers or bids placed on this eBay Stores listing are now null and void. If you were the winning bidder, you're no longer obliged to pay for the item:

XXXXXXXXXX - XXX,000 books eBook DVD CD AMAZON KINDLE IPAD IPHONE TABLET SONY SAMSUNG ANDROID

Here's what you can do if you've already paid for the item:

If you won the item and you've already paid for it, you can choose to reverse the payment or ask the seller for a refund. If you've already received the item you've the option of accepting it or returning it to the seller for a refund.

1) Contact the seller
2) Contact your payment provider
3) Report that the matter hasn't been resolved

- Contact the seller

At this stage, we recommend that you contact the seller and discuss the situation. These situations can often be resolved with a friendly conversation.

Check your email account for any previous emails you received from the seller - these may contain their contact information. Unfortunately, we can't give you the seller's contact details.

- Contact your payment provider

If you can't reach the seller, contact the service that you used to send payment. They may be able to reverse the payment.

If you used PayPal, copy this link into a new browser window to find out whether your purchase is protected:

https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_pbp-info-outside#dispute

If you paid by another method, such as bank transfer or credit card, contact your bank or credit card company.

- Report that the matter hasn't been resolved

If you're not able to arrange a refund and you didn't receive the item (or it wasn't as described in the listing), please let us know. You can contact us from any eBay Help page.

We assure you that your eBay record won't be negatively affected by this matter. We've told the seller that this listing has been removed and that you're no longer obliged to complete the purchase.

Finally, as the listing has been removed, no Feedback can be left for the purchase.

We hope that this information helps you decide how to proceed in this situation. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,

eBay Trust & Safety

Now.... how exactly does that warn booklovers who have bought all those illegal copies of in-copyright ebooks that they may not resell or share what they just bought?

Rowena Cherry
SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/