# Illegal software/sample libraries in eBay



## gsilbers (Nov 9, 2018)

I just cant believe that sample developers cannot sue the beejesus out of ebay for allowing peopl upload anauthorized sample libraries. 

its like owning a crack house, charging a price to get in and and have poeple do whatever they want (which some might be ok but others would be doing illigal stuff). if police come and ask then its the poeple getting in's fault, not the onwer. :/






We have IP geolocation tagging for orders and its easy to find out who it was and where they live... but still. ebay should have an easier, faster way of reporting these issues. OR have someone at ebay review every software sale before it goes live. If its too much trouble for them, its not my problem. Thats what every business has to do... always .... and ever.


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## Mystic (Nov 9, 2018)

Ebay is stupid in this way. In order to get them off there, you have to actually buy the product yourself and THEN report it despite the fact that you are the creator. I know @pluginguru has had the same issue in the past. :\

If I were you, I'd gather a lot of the developers together and start using social media as a tool to get their attention to change this.


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## Grégory Betton (Nov 9, 2018)

One should have no moral to resell a library (especially one he could have got for free with your generous vi-control discount :/)

Hope this could give you at least free advertising.


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## Parsifal666 (Nov 9, 2018)

I've seen a lot of this. Ebay is apparently helpless?


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## Desire Inspires (Nov 9, 2018)

But how would eBay know which software is pirated and which is legit? They have a ton of stuff for sale on the site. They have no reason to believe that softWare is illegal or pirated until a transaction is made.


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## gsilbers (Nov 9, 2018)

Desire Inspires said:


> But how would eBay know which software is pirated and which is legit? They have a ton of stuff for sale on the site. They have no reason to believe that softWare is illegal or pirated until a transaction is made.




a tv network shows a lot of programs and ads , how would they know if what they are showing is ISIS propaganda or beheadings. How would a baker know if the ingredients they are using is poison or not. Walmart sells a lot of things, how would they know if what they are selling is child porn. guitar center sells a lot of things, how would they know if the guitars they have are stolen. BMG has a lot of music libraries, how would they know if its a JayZ or Kanye west track? VI-control shows a lot of ads, how would they know its not an ad for the KKK?


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## MarcelM (Nov 9, 2018)

few years back i bought cubase 5 on ebay and i got a pirated copy from the seller. ebay didnt do shit about it and the guy was still selling even more.

sad thing is that i went to the police, but the thing didnt went to court or anything and nothing happend to the guy. also he really wrote me even that i can also take a lawyer but i would never get my money back because he is poor and i couldnt sue him.

ive also informed ebay about other auctions but they really do nothing even if you point them at it. this is simply not right, but i guess ebay just doesnt care because they get their cut from the auctions.


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## Jaap (Nov 9, 2018)

Yeah Ebay is shitty how they deal with this. With another sound designer we tried to get a few of our products down as we discovered someone sold our Omnisphere stuff as a bundle, but it took weeks (weeks ffs!) to get them to take those posts down.


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## Michael Antrum (Nov 9, 2018)

The only thing that would make eBay sit up and take notice would be some kind of class action lawsuit. Otherwise, like all the big tech companies, they'll just sit back and do as little as is absolutely necessary to keep the money rolling in - after all it costs them money to get a human being involved, and what they want is an automated business.

When there's been bad publicity over things like laser pointers and tasers being sold they've jumped as soon as the press made a fuss. They'll only do something if they absolutely have to.


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## gsilbers (Nov 9, 2018)

From what I remember and w/o looking it up I think adobe or autocad tried sued eBay and at the end a ruling said it’s ok to sell software. And it was overturn? Since these are samples with audio copyrighted it might be different. 
I’m sure the terms of service say users cannot sell anything illegal and yet they there are. And everyone looks the other way on these copyright issues on tech companies from eBay to Facebook to google and based on a made up business model of user platform. At least the Europeans are figuring this crap out. And of course a meme backlash because obviously users want stuff for free. And since Napster everyone just thinks music and software is free and people paying for it are dumb. 
So I’m going to open a broadcasting company, maybe tell Rupert Murdock to give me one and just have interns broadcast anything they want. Serial numbers for software, ways to make bombs, porn, any movie etc and have them sign a long ass fine print document when they come in, which they won’t really read because... well, there are cool stuff inside the broadcast company and no time to read. I’m sure the fcc won’t mind. I’ll just say... hey it’s not me or my broadcasting company. It’s those interns or kids coming in from the street. We have a huge sign outside the door about a cool public broadcast.


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## Doug (Nov 9, 2018)

It's as if you need to have your own loss prevention department! However, I think it's still a good idea to report them to Ebay. And if there is some way you can render such a product unusable (registration, serial, etc.), the buyer then has to go back to the seller.


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## bjderganc (Nov 9, 2018)

At the end of the day, the buyer doesn't get a registered license. If it ends up in a film or game, the composer/producer is legally responsible.


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## macmac (Nov 9, 2018)

I remember reading somewhere that Adobe had gotten Ebay to take down some listings. There was something I was going to buy on Ebay that looked totally legit but apparently wasn't, because by morning I got an email that they cancelled the sale because of it. I called them and they gave me the story. Unfortunately, I think the place is just too big to police everything because of the enormous amount of listings coming and going on a continuous basis, in all categories. The culprits likely continue to keep trying to earn money until they get shut down, if at all.

There is a report button on listings, isn't there? I thought I've seen one.

Also Amazon has become a target for counterfeit and illegitimate goods...I've read reviews from people saying they were victims of this, yet the product still is there. So yeah, unfortunately in this world it is all about the money. I have often wished there were comment sections on ebay so at least warnings could be made to people who have bids on stuff.

I am so sorry this is happening to you. It is just not right at all. At the very least, I would contact and tell them this is not legitimate, and that you wish to have the listing removed and the product flagged for the future, same goes for flagging the seller.


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## erica-grace (Nov 9, 2018)

gsilbers said:


> for allowing peopl upload anauthorized sample libraries.



You mean cracked versions - or legit versions that the end user wants to sell, but really isn't allowed to by the developer? Two different things - the latter being not good but not terrible (disrespectful of the developer more than anything), and the former being really bad.



gsilbers said:


> From what I remember and w/o looking it up I think adobe or autocad tried sued eBay and at the end a ruling said it’s ok to sell software.



That case was about the resale of legit copies - not cracked copies.



gsilbers said:


> a tv network shows a lot of programs and ads , how would they know if what they are showing is ISIS propaganda or beheadings. How would a baker know if the ingredients they are using is poison or not. Walmart sells a lot of things, how would they know if what they are selling is child porn. guitar center sells a lot of things, how would they know if the guitars they have are stolen. BMG has a lot of music libraries, how would they know if its a JayZ or Kanye west track? VI-control shows a lot of ads, how would they know its not an ad for the KKK?



The sheer volume of ebay goods is WAY larger than anything you mention - save for maybe Walmart. Point is, ebay cant check everything that is uploaded to their site - that is impossible.

There are 175 million buyers. 25 million sellers, and over 1 billion items listed. You want them to check every single one?

And what does a class action lawsuit do? Even if you win, how does that help similar sw from getting sold in the future?


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## jcrosby (Nov 10, 2018)

Parsifal666 said:


> I've seen a lot of this. Ebay is apparently helpless?


No, ebay really doesn't care. I bought some electronics on there a few years back and eventually realized they were counterfeit. (Even managed to get a statement from the company confirming they were fake.)

Although ebay refunded my purchase, and claimed I should report fraud, they continued to let this person sell re-listed versions of the exact same item despite me flagging the listings multiple times and referencing the case. No action, complete bullshit...

I also used to see this all the time when I worked in a vintage guitar store... Outright forgeries claiming to be original selling for high end money... Ebay wouldn't take any action unless they were caught. We're talking guitars that were being bid up to $20-30,000? That's the kind of price tag pretty much any other site would take seriously...


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## gregh (Nov 10, 2018)

erica-grace said:


> Y
> There are 175 million buyers. 25 million sellers, and over 1 billion items listed. You want them to check every single one?



Yeah I do, otherwise their business model is - we facilitate the sale of anything, legal or not. The world got along fine without ebay, if they love their profits so much they aren't willing to limit their service to legal trade then I'm fine with ebay being shut down.


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## macmac (Nov 10, 2018)

jcrosby said:


> We're talking guitars that were being bid up to $20-30,000? That's the kind of price tag pretty much any other site would take seriously...



And think of the money they'd make on that sale if they let it go through.  Not making it right though.

From my principles, it's hard to imagine how any company or person wouldn't want their business and actions to be based on legitimacy and ethics. Unfortunately concerns are more often about a company's bottom line instead of the good of the people.

Fortunately there are still companies and people who do care and have good values.


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## Desire Inspires (Nov 10, 2018)

For the complainers: If eBay is so bad, why do you continue to shop from the website? You can always buy direct from the manufacturer for software.


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## Dietz (Nov 10, 2018)

erica-grace said:


> There are 175 million buyers. 25 million sellers, and over 1 billion items listed. You want them to check every single one?


 Yes, of course! After all that's what they make money from. *grrrr*


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## Olfirf (Nov 10, 2018)

Dietz said:


> Yes, of course! After all that's what they make money from. *grrrr*


Exactly! I sometimes wonder why so many people seem to accept nowadays all sorts of criminal behavior and customer fraud. Don't defend Ebay! Don't defend Youtube! Don't defend Facebook! ... The companies with the biggest growth in recent history have been growing upon setting up an infrastructure that makes money for them with the smallest effort possible. They are in every way responsible for offers made by people using those platforms. Countries, where there responsibilities are already undermined by legislature should not serve as an example! They already start ignoring legislature in countries because they think of themselves above states, which is very dangerous.
If you believe that is only a mindset for the past, you haven't even begun to understand some of the biggest threats to well-being of mankind in the 21st century (climate change, senseless waste of our planets resources and the danger of a nuclear war are even grimmer, of course, but you should not underestimate, where this development might lead us ...)!


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## givemenoughrope (Nov 10, 2018)

So...maybe the way to take it down is to make a "fake" account and just buy them all but obviously don't pay? Just flood them with empty purchases...? Just trying to think of an immediate and practical solution.


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## MichaelBarry (Nov 10, 2018)

I just reported them thanks for letting me know.


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## rrichard63 (Nov 10, 2018)

mikeybabes said:


> ... it costs them money to get a human being involved, and what they want is an automated business.


This!


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