Tiffany Appeals Court Decision

Patricia1On 08.11.2008 at 5:23 pm Said:

Sorry, I’m on Tiffany’s side with this. Ebay shouldn’t depend on every single company out there to come in and protect their interests. It doesn’t seem possible - also, I know full well how Ebay does drag its feet when you bother to report fraud to them. They haven’t exactly been “johnny on the spot” in my opinion.

HenriettaOn 08.11.2008 at 11:58 pm Said:

Maybe the new search makes it too hard for Tiffany to search for VERO violations. This is not said to be funny but it is getting very hard to find stuff.

DakotaOn 08.12.2008 at 2:59 am Said:

eBay should be held accountable. They know that many if not most of the Tiffany items on eBay are counterfeit. By hosting counterfeits on the site, they are acting as a fence for these items and exposing their shoppers to the risk of being scammed and destroying the Tiffany name.

I also like the part of the court ruling that says that eBay can use the Tiffany name, pretty much as they please but just let someone try to use the word “bay” in the same way the court said eBay can use the Tiffany name. Holy smokes - eBay comes out with guns drawn with a lawsuit against the “infringing party”!

I think they paid the judge in this case.

Go Tiffany!!

I have been reporting (for more than a month) a particular seller for selling fake stones as real and do you really think that eBay has done anything about it? NO! They could care a less as long as they get their fees.

So much for the pleasurable buying experience when those buyers find out that they bought fake stones.

KPAOn 08.12.2008 at 5:41 am Said:

I can’t begin to imagine how big a task it is to differentiate between sellers of legitimate brands vs. the counterfeit stuff.

eBay’s legal team is smart enough to know they can’t just turn a blind eye to the problem so the monumental challange is how to know for certain. That’s a nearly impossible thing to do 100% of the time. Sure they make millions off of the illegal stuff, I’m not disputing that but I think the offending sellers should be held accountable as much if not more so than eBay. Buyers who receive such merchandise should immediately report the seller to eBay and the police or organization who oversees criminal activity such as this.

We’ve probably all read of the DVD counterfeit seller who is now serving jail time. With other scam sellers in trouble and headed to jail with him it shows the industry is trying to clean out the criminals. I don’t agree with many of eBay’s policy changes of late but I don’t think they should bear the brunt of having to compensate Tiffany for the illegal activity of sellers. They do take steps to shut those sellers down when they are notified and the seller is investigated. I’m sure it isn’t done fast enough to please the whistleblower but as in most situation like this the wheels turn very slowly.

As a consignment seller I have a clause in my contract that states they attest to being the legal owner of the item and that it is legitimate. As one person dealing with dozens it is a lot easier to check them out since they are face to face with me. Imagine how difficult it is when there are thousands you never meet or see.

Sure eBay could do more in the verification process and I hope in time they will do just that. It sure would save a bunch of headaches for buyers, sellers and companies such as Tiffany who have a legitimate right to expect their brand to be protected.

I don’t wish eBay any ill will just because I’m unhappy with their policy changes of late. I think they will agressively go after scam sellers to the degree possible to protect themselves from further liability. It’ll all come out in the wash in the end.

In legal litigation you always go after the deepest pockets and eBay’s are certainly deeper then the scam sellers. Those sellers are the ones who should pay the price.

HalOn 08.12.2008 at 7:39 am Said:

I don’t know why eBay doesn’t just block listings of anything with “Tiffany” in the title or description, or misspellings of “Tiffany” to try to get around a block. Take the sales off eBay completely and then Tiffany can go after sites like ioffer that have all kinds of “designer” goods listed on the front page.

I understand Tiffany wanting to make sure no fakes of their goods are sold, but there’s no reason they can’t be held as ultimately responsible to “police” their brand. If they were serious about keeping fakes off the markets and not just collecting from deep pockets, they’d have sued just about every online store that offers Tiffany, not just the best-known and richest company.

Dakota, you said: “just let someone try to use the word “bay” in the same way the court said eBay can use the Tiffany name. Holy smokes - eBay comes out with guns drawn with a lawsuit against the “infringing party”!” You mean like pheebay.com, ebaysucks.com, auctionbay.com, or others? The only evidence of any lawsuit like that I could find on Google was years ago when some site called BidBay launched, and the suit was over more than the name, it was the whole appearance of the site and logo copying from eBay. That’s very different from having thousands of listings of Tiffany items, some of which are real and some of which are fake and not all the fakes are obvious.

Tiffany owns the brand, they can step up to protect it.

dimesOn 08.12.2008 at 9:07 am Said:

The reason eBay customers think the VERO program is worthless is because it responds only to the copyright owner, despite the fact that some of the fakes for sale on eBay are blatant.

Every time someone reports a fake and is ignored, a little more trust in eBay gets chipped away.

On the other hand, it can’t respond to everyone who reports a fake, because the reporter could be wrong, or even a malicious competitor.

But what eBay could do is:
- forward the report to the copyright holder, if it is a member of VERO, and TELL THE CUSTOMER it has done so.
- respond to the customer that the copyright holder is not a VERO member and encourage them to make contact directly.

This non-response, non-action lack of customer service has never been pleasant, but it’s gotten to the point now where it’s simply unacceptable.

Patricia1On 08.12.2008 at 12:13 pm Said:

One artist already learned that you can’t use Tiffany in a title. She was on the art board complaining as to why she could not get her listing to go thru. We went over what she was doing and all was find…we could find no reason why it wouldn’t go thru…then she said her title had her first name in it…”Tiffany”! She was pretty angry that she couldn’t use it but once she switched to just the initial the listing went right thru. So, I imagine ebay is banning listings with Tiffany in the title.

HenriettaOn 08.12.2008 at 3:34 pm Said:

Its very difficult. I don’t see how else eBay could do it. I pulled my listings from iOffer because they were so flooded with fakes. I don’t want to deal with the kind of people who buy or sell fakes.

I would think the obvious tactic of refusing listings from geographic areas where it would be unlikely that the product existed in quantity would work. LV purses, French perfume and MAC makeup from Asia comes to mind.

On eBay.com in the USA either they totally block the use of the Tiffany word, which would inconvenience the very few people who have that name or they run the risk of allowing obvious fakes. I would imagine it would be possible to selectively block the word only in the applicable categories but you know someone who is deliberately selling fakes will have no problem deliberately listing in the wrong category.

Obviously they can’t pull listings on the word of a user who may be a competitor. I think the idea of notifying the VERO which could be done automatically might work but that is open to abuse too. If I own a used doohickey then I have a legal right to sell it (unless it is makeup). What do you do about the US seller who is selling brand name make up and who has a perfect legal right to do so even if the manufacturer doesn’t like it?

When we had a tack shop there were manufacturers who would not allow the use of their name for online sales and we sold end stock as ‘made by a well known manufacturer who will not allow us to mention their name’. It worked.

I am glad it is not my problem.

DakotaOn 08.12.2008 at 3:48 pm Said:

Dimes - you are talking about bidbay but what about the others?

There was a site, not even an auction site, fairly recently (within the last year) that had “bay” in the name and eBay made them change the name. I don’t remember all of the specifics but they were selling a particular type if merchandise and simply added bay to the end of the site name.

Someone came into the AC a few months ago and made comment that eBay had contacted them over an auction site that they had just started (this was just since the recent changes were announced) and they had bay in the name and eBay sent them legal notice. The site had only 2 items on it.

Bay watch: a gay auction site finds itself at odds with eBay - On the Web
Advocate, The, Oct 15, 2002 by Jeremiah Hall

It’s the battle of the Bays: gay and lesbian auction site AlternaBay and Internet giant eBay are gearing up for a copyright infringement fight.

“No one can own the word bay,” said AlternaBay founder Ronnie Rodriguez. “I plan to fight for as long as it takes to prove that.”

AlternaBay is an auction site that caters to gays and lesbians, which creates an opportunity for people to shop or sell with others who share similar lifestyles, interests, and tastes, Rodriguez said. The bay in the name, he added, refers to his geographical community. But eBay sees the matter differently.

“The word bay immediately conjures up an image of eBay,” said eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove. The company eventually sent a cease-and-desist letter to Rodriguez in August, and Pursglove said if AlternaBay doesn’t change its name, the company will litigate.

Several other Web sites, including BidBay and film director Kevin Smith’s Web site, which named an auction page e Jay after one of the writer-director’s more popular characters, have lost similar copyright infringement battles with eBay.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Liberation Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group

Tuesday, 31 July, 2001, 23:22 GMT 00:22 UK

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_2002_Oct_15/ai_92616670

vaderOn 08.12.2008 at 6:37 pm Said:

A copyright or trademark is not a thing but a monopoly given by the state, in this case the US government, to a creator to create something of benefit to the US citizens. Check out the constitution.

What Tiffany is saying is that yea we make tons of money off of this monopoly but we do not want to spend the time and effort to enforce this government monopoly, we want to burden someone else.

If you read the court decision, you find this point is made. In simple terms, Tiffany wants to privatize their profits and if possible never pay taxes. Yet they want the cost of this private profit to be put on someone else. Be it additional costs to legit folks or Ebay or both.

I say, that they have to defend their profit themselves.

Ebay will take down pirate stuff and do it in a very unpleasant manner. In fact they will take down legit stuff on the mere word of a copyright holder and the ebayer must formally Challenger the holder to take the matter to court to clear his name.

The error rate on take down notices is about 30%. Or 3 of 10 folks accused are innocent. If this was say ticking folks at random for speeding because a policeman felt they might be speeding, there would be outrage.

DakotaOn 08.12.2008 at 8:47 pm Said:

Sorry everyone, I meant to address Hal’s comment and accidently wrote Dimes name. Please forgive me.

DakotaOn 08.13.2008 at 1:44 am Said:

And more…

Perfume Bay
eBay Inc. v. Martino, 07-cv-06172-CRB, N. D. California.
The Perfume Bay case that went to the 9th circuit is Perfumebay.com Inc v. Ebay Inc., 04-01358-WDK, C. D. California

CoinBay (which is now CoinDay) suit by eBay:
http: // thepriorart.typepad.com / the_prior_art / files / coinbaycomplaint.pdf
(Take the spaces out - I was worried a link would not post).

They even had to remove “Buy Now” buttons (NOT “buy it now” as on eBay) from their site (I thought that eBay hocked that idea from someone else - Mercexchange, L.L.C. v. eBay, Inc., et al. 01-cv-00736, E. D. Virginia).

It appears to me that the site thinks that the only one who is protected from infringement is themselves. They could care a less about anyone else.

If they would police their site, companies - no matter how small, wouldn’t have to pay to hire people to do so. After all, the site is the one doing the fencing, not the rights holder. If the site didn’t exist, the crooked seller would have to find another way to peddle their goods.

Just because the site has deep, greeback filled pockests doesn’t mean that they are the only business worthy of protection (especially since a lot of those greenbacks came from conterfeit items).

JayOn 08.13.2008 at 10:58 am Said:

Here’s a novel approach. If the brand name companies really care about counterfeits, they need to create a bar code system that allows eBay to determine if the item is counterfeit or not.

The seller puts in the code, and problem solved. It’s genuine.

Here’s the deal, though - Tiffany doesn’t care about counterfeits. They just don’t want people selling their product, except them.

People should be able to sell their own items to whomever they want.

Think Tiffany will ever go to a garage sale and sue someone with 5-10 Tiffany items?

Course not.

S.C.On 08.13.2008 at 1:39 pm Said:

Here’s a novel approach. If the brand name companies really care about counterfeits, they need to create a bar code system that allows eBay to determine if the item is counterfeit or not.

The seller puts in the code, and problem solved. It’s genuine.

And who pays for all this? Who polices ebay to ensure they are actually following through? What happens when an item has the same number as another - I mean is someone simply using the same number over and over or is the actual item being sold multiple times on ebay?

ebay has no credibility, why would any manufacturer be willing to expend additional monies for ebay?

ebay’s track record is certainly not stellar. I certainly would not stake my reputation in ebay’s hands. That’s what you are basically saying. Companies have spent billions bulding their brand, ebay can destroy it very quickly.

Here’s the deal, though - Tiffany doesn’t care about counterfeits. They just don’t want people selling their product, except them.

I wonder if we would even be having this discussion had ebay policed it’s site to begin with.

People should be able to sell their own items to whomever they want.

Yes, they should. Just as buyers have the right to be buying the name brand they expect. That does not happen on ebay, and ebay not caring is the real issue.

ebay created this problem.

Think Tiffany will ever go to a garage sale and sue someone with 5-10 Tiffany items?

Doubt it, but then your avg garage sale doesn’t have a few thousand made in China fakes.

Yawnie the YawnsterOn 08.13.2008 at 3:47 pm Said:

I bought a fake Tiffany bag last week in a swap meet. Should Tiffany sue the swap meet for or the person that sold it to me?

Is it Craiglist’s job to make sure every item sold on their website is authentic? Is it the newspaper’s job to make sure nothing listed in their classified section is fake? Is it even possible?

If you say it’s eBay’s job, then there is something more than this issue that you don’t like about eBay.