Ebay Fined $66m For Selling Fake ... Goods

quote: "I think ebay got targeted because it's a cash cow."
- my point exactly, and as long as it makes a profit, it'll be a target.

quote: "I can't see how it's at fault."
- the rrest of us can: it profits from fraud committed on its customers.

quote: "How would it be able to stop this if counterfeits look nearly identical to the actual products ..."
- that is a real issue, HOWEVER, as we know, ebay has been warned MANY times about some types of forged coins, and about particular dealers, so they know the areas where they are vulnerable, but they persist in taking these risk, at the expense of their customers.

quote: "... and on top of that people put up junky pictures."
- ebay ought not tolerate "junky pictures".

ebay operates in an environment called "wilful ignorance", in spite of repeated warnings. They encourage crooks; and the consumer suffers: not a difficult choice for a court.

Peter

You might think it should be the infringer of the trademark that should be sued, not the market the item is sold in. However Napster was sued by the music companies for 1) infringing the music companies' copyright; (2) contributory infringement of their copyright; and (3) for vicarious infringement of the plaintiff's copyright. Napster argued they they were just providing a site where people could share music. The U.S. District Court found Napster guilty on all three of the claims, and that decision was upheld by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Probably some home cooking in that European Court which might have turned out differently in a US court, but after the Napster decision I'm not so sure.

Some counterfeits are extremely hard to detect, how is ebay suppose to weed these out? While it's easier to spot counterfeits on coins, what about DVD's, clothing, perfume, purses, electronics, etc? How can you tell the difference unless your comparing the exact items next to each other? Banning people from posting junkie pictures is insane, because it will lose business and there's always going to be the issue on what is a junkie picture? I think it's on the seller's fault, not ebay's.

How would you suggest that ebay fix this problem? Require receipts? What if the item was a gift or is old and the receipt is lost? Do you keep every receipt you get? High quality images? Not everyone can take high quality images and even with that, you can't sometimes tell the difference. This stuff has been going on for years in the streets. Why don't they sue the malls that sell items like these or markets that allow people to sell these items? If there were no buyers for these items, then the sellers would stop selling them. Maybe they should go after the individual buyers. If your buying a shirt that costs $300 for $10 it's obvious that buyer knows their buying a counterfeit.

I think Napster was different because almost all of it content was illegal and it's original purpose was the share music easily amoungst students at the university it was first created in.

Edit: Just wanted to state that I'm not an ebay fanboy nor a counterfeit fan. So no bias here.

That doesn't mean it's set in stone. I bet that ebay's attorney's are going to appeal it.