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In a move which shall surely tint the color of eBay operations, Harry Potter creator and author J.K. Rowling has prevailed in an Indian court and has won an injunction against eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) demanding the immediate suspension of sales involving pirated copies of her many books.
A report in the Times Online states that the court action, which was initially brought in 2004, has resulted in a court issued dictate which for the first time requires that eBay shall police its site for specific pirated copies of material. This one court order results in a tremendous "Catch-22," in that if eBay fails to exercise due diligence in manners which are known and available it shall be in violation of a court order and risk the penalties brought on by a finding of contempt of court. The catch is that in exercising due diligence to satisfy this court order, the groundwork is then laid for similar requirements in all similar situations. eBay clearly has its back against the wall here. The court order is binding until the hearing resumes on May 23, 2007.
Harry Potter casts a binding spell upon eBay
Posted Feb 26th 2007 4:50PM by Gary Sattler
Filed under: Bad News, Law, Consumer Experience, Competitive Strategy, eBay (EBAY)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-27-2007 @ 11:49AM
Chris said...
This really opens a huge can of worms, eBay has always been "Just a venue" but now has to make judgement calls re is a "Harry Potter book" listing a legitimate copy or is it an e-book ripoff? How they will do this without eyeballing each individual listing I do not know, and eyeballing millions of listings a day just isn't going to happen.
This could be the most radical shake up of the eBay marketplace for years
http://www.tamebay.com/2007/02/harry-potters-j-k-rowling-sues-ebay.html
4-03-2007 @ 5:15PM
Gill said...
"The catch is that in exercising due diligence to satisfy this court order, the groundwork is then laid for similar requirements in all similar situations."
That's the bit that concerns me too.If JKR wins then i'm sure we will see all the fashion companies do likewise.
2-27-2007 @ 11:49AM
Michele said...
It's about time...
2-27-2007 @ 11:49AM
Chris said...
"The catch is that in exercising due diligence to satisfy this court"
The catch is how on earth can they comply with the court order? Do they ban all Harry Potter items? Do they scan items before they go live on the site? Is cancelling them after they go live sufficient to fulfil the injunction terms? What if they cancel loads and miss just one? What if they cancel items in error?
It's a really nasty mess, IMO eBay have no chance of compliance :O
2-27-2007 @ 11:49AM
Marsello said...
I wonder if this injunction won against eBay in an Indian court could be applied to other possible suits in other countries? But wouldn't the eBay feedback system filter these eBay knockoffs in the first place? All eBay has to do is to monitor these feedbacks for any copyright violation.
http://www.feedbacksecrets.com/
2-27-2007 @ 11:50AM
Your Next Auctions said...
I agree with Marsello. In the next auctions, eBay might need to upgrade its feedback system to show all auctions feedbacks that might alert them to pirated copies.
http://www.myauctionfeedback.com
2-27-2007 @ 2:20PM
Zak said...
Just as well Cramer made his call last night. If he hadn't we'd probably be looking at a 4% drop today instead of a 1-2% one.
3-10-2007 @ 11:36AM
shwe said...
the position is quite the contrary - I've read the orders in question - please see my blog at spicyipindia.blogspot.com for the correct picture