Ebay told to pay $61M to fashion brand for fakes

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Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

Yes, these are issues that they'd have to deal with, but I don't think that's too much to ask of a business as large as them.
IMO, they should have some responsibility to atleast put reasonable efforts into solving these isssues. Every other business has similar responsibilities, so why not ebay?

They already do put in efforts, the question then becomes what's reasonable. Since we don't have #'s as far as # of employees, percentages of operating costs, etc, we have no idea if they are reasonable or not.

This court doesn't think so, but that doesn't say much. I disagree with the premise to begin with.

IMO, they are willing accomplices because it doesn't seem like the put enough effort into preventing it. Perhaps you disagree, but at the end of the day that's for courts to decide.
Clearly this one agrees with me that they havn't done enough and have been to hands off with this issue.

Spending millions a year isn't "hands off", as you say it comes down to how much is reasonable.. What percentage of a listing fee should go towards policing this? 1%? 10%?

[Thunderball]

While I don't think ebay is totally culpable, not to the tune of $61 million at least... they really have to take ownership for the fact that they are now flooded with fake merchandise. First its LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, next it'll be Armani, Versace... and even Nike and Adidas. I'm sure they don't take too kindly to authentic fake soccer jerseys being sold there.

I don't use ebay anymore... way too much fake stuff, and its not worth the effort to sift through.

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http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=12374

A federal court in New York sided with eBay in a lawsuit with upscale jeweler Tiffany & Co. Monday, mandating that eBay sellers can continue to peddle designer jewelry without the site policing listings for counterfeit items. According to U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan’s 66-page ruling (PDF), eBay’s current efforts at enforcement – which primarily involves responding to takedown requests from copyright and trademark holders – are more than sufficient to keep the site out of liability for inadvertently brokering counterfeit goods.

I thought this part was interesting, and was relevant to the discussion earlier about how much effort eBay should be putting into it:

eBay has a team of 200 employees dedicated to rooting out counterfeit listings, and another 70 that liaise with law enforcement. Further, noted Sullivan, eBay’s automated enforcement software is so aggressive that it’s crashed the site’s computer systems on numerous occasions. Tiffany, on the other hand, spent substantially less time developing its arguments, which include a commissioned survey of goods that Sullivan found to be “flawed” and a paralegal hired to patrol the site for two days a week.

270 employees.. that's what, $1 million dollars a month?

[Boblobla]

Originally Posted by photon

270 employees.. that's what, $1 million dollars a month?

I am with you that I think they are doing quite abit to try and stop this. It doesn't look good for ebay that counterfeit items are sold there. If people can't be convinced that they are buying a quality product or that it may or may not be real they are less likely to shop there. It is in Ebays best interest to ensure quality product in an effort to get repeat business.

What else can they do aside from hire more and more people?

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by photon

If I were eBay I'd push this onto the rights holders, sellers, and buyers.. make it so rights holders can have back end access to auctions and search them themselves and flag ones that are questionable. Then the seller can reply with proof and the rights holder can agree and lift the flag, or keep the flag. Buyers would be able to see the flag and then know that LV themselves think the auction is fishy.

This pretty much sums it up. You can't expect eBay to have those kind of resources and be able to effectively weed out everything. They currently monitor auctions and get rid of the real obvious stuff. The rest they'd have to leave to the companies, brands and labels themselves. What better people to keep current on their own products and be able to tell fakes from the real thing?