I have purchased many ebooks on Ebay. How would I know, as a purchaser, if what I’m purchasing is stolen or what I’ve already purchased is stolen? Ebook purchasers on Ebay needs some advice, too.

I have on average 2-3 listings removed every week via VERO.

VERO however has serious flaws. For example although Ebay move quickly to remove an illegal listing they do nothing to stop a repeat preformance from a user who’s sole objecive it is to sell other peoples property using ebay as his illegal shop front.

I have had constant battles with ebay proving catagorically that xyx user is a repeat offender even faxing them the original VERO removal request form for the said users.

Ebay do nothing and I mean nothing at all to stop repeat offenders, they simply remove the listing and the theft continues.

Therefore I have taken a few steps to stop the problem with considerable success.

Some things you can do :

1 – Download something like PLUCK and get it to check ebay automatically for listings with your key words.

2- On your ebook download page make it very clear you will sue the ass of anybody using ebay to sell your product, explicitly stating you check it each day and you will leave negative feedback when the listing is found

3- In your follow up e-mail send the same message

4 – In the PDF itself have a front page message explaining you will sue for copyright infringement and you check ebay every day , that you will get their account shut down and or leave neg feedback.

5 – on the footer of each page make it clear again that the copy they purchased is for their own use only etc.

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Some stuff you actually do on ebay

1- Obviously get signed up to the VERO program here :
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/vero/about.html

2- Use PLUCK or Ebay’s own service to check for illegal listings

3- Leave negative feedback for the user with the wording along the lines of

Ebayer is selling stolen property – reported to Ebay

(They love that, they never list your property again trust me)

I do suggest you set up an account on ebay just for leaving negative feedback for these scum balls.

Additionally use some common sence, if it looks like the kind of user with a shop full of stolen intellectual property, go with the neg feedback, if not simply use VERO .

My tact is if they are repeat offenders or simply have created a complete store of other peoples property , I leave neg feedback AND then get VERO to remove their listing so they suffer both ways.

If they are just plain stupid and think because they purchased it they can sell it as their own, I simply get VERO to remove it.

It’s a problem there seems no solution to until somebody manages to get a partnership deal with Adobe and creates a true PDF protection system that does not require passwords usernames, works on macs and PC’s and simply ties a PDF to the hardware manufacturers hard disk ID. As a bonus if it could have a ‘turn off and lock ebook ‘ feature which presents the customer with a code which they give to you and you then refund them we would all be laughing.

Ebook pro etc have had a crack at it but nobody has come up with a true PDF protection system that is not flawed in on area or another.

Once a month I have one of my staff members go to ebay and shut down anyone selling my downloadable course.

They even copy the sales page and take images from my website! It’s amazing.

What can you do, other than stop the fraud where you can and hope the people who buy the products come to you for more info?

Donna

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FROM JIM:

I’m not a lawyer (nor do I play one on TV)… but in my opinion:

If they are her own personal copies and there is no license restriction on Mike’s end against it, then she should be able
to do it.

If she made backups, she would need to destroy those (can’t sell or
use them) and uninstall any software, etc. that came with the products.

Can’t use any of Mike’s sales copy to sell them… have to write
your own descriptions of the product to list in the auction.