Ebay vs. Musician 428
evenprime writes "Ebay's Verified Rights Owner Program was designed to make sure the auction site doesn't let people
sell things that violate copyright laws. Unfortunately, over-zealous ebay employees have been causing problems for independent musicians. George Ziemann has a detailed
account of the difficulties he's faced when trying to sell copies of his CD on the auction site. Apparently ebay kept pulling his ads simply because he was selling a product recorded to CD-R!
Ebay employees assume that all audio recordings on CD-R are the result of piracy, despite the fact that many indie bands burn their own music to CD-R to sell it. Wired has a nice summary of this story."
It's not just individuals... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.negativland.com/riaa/
Good example (Score:4, Interesting)
The RIAA should just rename itself 'The Trustworthy Music Initiative'. The more strongarm RIAA gets, and the more fear they seed
Simple solution (Score:5, Interesting)
A workaround, and a musing (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, the musing. This kind of blanket policy in regards to anything is the proverbial throwing the baby out with the bath water. For example, back in 1997, a friend of mine got me anime (the first Tenchi movie) for a birthday present, which inspired me to start collecting the series. Finding a Suncoast that would sell it to me at the age of 17 was difficult, though, since almost every one I visited had "Must Be 18 or Over to Purchase" stickers on every title - even on titles with absolutely no content that could be justifiably deemed "offensive" to those not of legal age. I eventually just enlisted the help of an older sister to get what I was going after.
The irony of this is that when I turned 18, virtually every Suncoast in the area dropped that blanket policy.
What the..... (Score:2, Interesting)
Where's the sense in that?
Re:It's not just individuals... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.negativland.com/riaa/dowesue.html
was the bit about Top 40 artsits only clearing samples you can recognize.
Its not like it surprises me, but thats some good argumentative fodder should you be talking to proponants of *air-tight* copyright laws.
That is, music doesn't/can't get made without samples, and even the big players dont clear all their samples
Indiscriminate Copyright Bots at work? (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps this is a result of an indiscriminate Copyright Bot [foxnews.com] as described by Tennessee Law professor, Glenn Reynolds [instapundit.com]?
The same thing happened to me, but with pictures (Score:1, Interesting)
Smarter Musicians (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ridiculous (Score:3, Interesting)
Should eBay really be responsible for preventing these abuses? The market does handle some things well, and this is one of them: if people are willing to pay, let them pay. As long as the seller accurately represents what they are selling, and the sale doesn't break the law, the rest is between the buyer and the seller.
One time, I was hanging out with a friend, and he noted that he'd found a Susan B. Anthony silver dollar. I said, "You should sell it on eBay!" We laughed
OK, so the buyers are probably suckers. But they're not being scammed -- they're just paying money for something that you and I probably think is not worth it. Is that eBay's problem?
Re:Fair Play (Score:1, Interesting)
Pirated Virtual Hammond auction #1 [ebay.com]
Pirated Virtual Hammond auction #2 [ebay.com]
Pirated Virtual Hammond auction #3 [ebay.com]
This guy has been trying to sell this stuff off and on for months and the auctions keep getting shut down, but nothing ever happens to him
Combating Misuse of the DMCA (Score:2, Interesting)
It would be nice to be able to disbar any lawyer claiming to represent the copyright holder of a given item, when in fact they don't. That would put a stop to some of the stories I've heard about unchecked computerized searches for infringing content. It would be especially nice to make attempting to extort money for the same a criminal fraud offence.
It would also be nice that if someone tells an ISP to remove infringing content, only to have it turn out to be not-infringing, they should have to pay the ISP for their time and effort, and they should have to pay damages to the owner of the removed site.
a worse example (Score:5, Interesting)
My worse example is that I tried to sell an import copy of final fantasy 9 on ebay. (I am in the UK and this was the US version).
I basically stated that this was a US PS1 disc and you couldn't play it unless you had a US or chipped console.
So they pulled my auction, stating that I was "encouraging console chipping" to play (original) imports, which Sony had told them was illegal.
They said it would be OK to resubmit the auction if I made no mention of chipping, but I felt disinclined to walk the thin line between stating something they felt was encouraging evil crime and on the other hand not giving people enough information, so they'd complain when they couldn't play it. (I have had people in the US for example buy PAL videos from me and be mystified as to why they can't play them).
graspee
Musicians unite! (Score:2, Interesting)
I wouldn't be too surprised if it was some RIAA-paid instance who's intentionally fingering these CD-R sellers as thieves as a means to suppress their usage of the distribution channel, because if a large part of musicians found out that the scheme works, what would RIAA do (answer: shrivel up).
As a countermeasure, the musicians should create a union of their own and put up one big web auction site for the sole purpose of selling their own music, under their own supervision. This way,
Re:CD-R? (Score:2, Interesting)
eBay's violation-finding techniques (Score:3, Interesting)
eBay notoriously doesn't actually *check* many auctions, and instead tends to end things via VeRO by searching listings for "forbidden" words. One of the big forbidden words is "promo" or "promotional," which is almost guaranteed to get your listing kicked out of the music section (despite the fact that it's a rather spurious assumption to make that things stamped "Not for sale" can never be sold, but...). Thus, one finds endless listings for "samplers" or "rhymes-with-flow-motional" albums. This may be a case of the same thing.
Or it could just be the usually self-appointed eBay police making life hell, but...
-D
He protests too much, methinks... (Score:4, Interesting)
It should have been clear that any listing that mentioned CD-R or CD-RW was going to get tagged. It should have been clear that this was being done by a dumb automated process. It should have been clear that eBay does NOT have the staff to spend very much time researching the actual status of every listed item. Maybe this is wrong, maybe this is right, but it should have been pretty clear what was going on.
What he should have tried was continuing to sell his CD's on eBay, but simply avoiding any red-flag terms in the listing.
It's obvious at this point that he wants eBay to accept listings _in which he calls them CD-R's_.
In other words, it's no longer a genuine effort to see whether independent musicians can use eBay to earn a living selling their recordings; it's become a crusade to change eBay's policies about listing CD-R's
Well, that's fine if that's what he wants to do. Personally, if it were me, I'd try to see whether there was some reasonable, hypocritical way to list my CD's in a way that was honest and didn't misrepresent them in any way material to buyers, but which would pass eBay's automated filters.
If the automated filters don't catch the listings, it's unlikely that eBay would cause him any problems UNLESS there actually was a COMPLAINT from the likes of Vivendi--and that wouldn't be likely to happen if the situation is as he represents it to be.
Re:It's not just individuals... (Score:3, Interesting)
At any rate, the classical greats were sampling each other (including 2 or 3 bars from each others' works verbatim) all the time, so I shouldn't even talk about it like its new. Its been around for hundreds of years, so I guess what I meant is that sampling isn't going away.
And since it isn't going away, then indie artists should be held to the same legal standards as big label artists as it pertains to sampling.
Unfortauntely, it doesnt happen that way. I've had indie musician sites refuse to host some of my stuff because they *suspect* that that distorted, garbled sample of some dude talking at the beginning of my track is going to land them in legal hot waters. Like the copyright holder is going storm into their offices with laywers for something he recorded 30 years ago, and demand compensation for saying 6 words in a row in some creative copyright-holding way. *smirk*
But yeah, didn't mean doesnt/cant. I meant wont.
Preemptive strike (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure this would do any good in the case of blind keyword parsing, but it might at least give you some protection against vigilantes (private or corporate) who cruise ebay looking for contraband to report.
Similar experience with the word 'import' (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:CD-R? Because it is. (Score:2, Interesting)
Musicians, CD-Rs, and the RIAA boycott (Score:5, Interesting)
In 1999, at the height of the Napster furor, I decided I was going to boycott the entire RIAA until further notice; the implications of their copyright fanaticism on free speech are staggering, and I feel like I would be remiss in supporting it.
You can't really base a boycott on piracy, so I've stopped listening to RIAA recordings altogether; 99% of what I hear is stuff I download from other musicians' sites and burn to CD-R. And although you have to search a little harder, I think some of my CD-Rs are plain and simply *better* than anything the Big Four have put out since, say, 1985.
Here's two of the primary problems I encouter:
1. That fucking CD-R tax. Every time I buy a CD-R, Congress assumes I'm a pirate, and I have to pay a nickel to mega-acts like Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. That's exactly the kind of shit I'm trying to boycott in the first place; it infuriates me that they've circumvented some of my boycott through Congressional lobbying. In a way, I feel like I'd be justified in stealing a Britney CD and microwaving it; I'm paying for it, right? But I don't.
2. This eBay policy, and the dozens of similar policies, that assume that legitimate music cannot be packaged as a CD-R. News flash: it can. I own probably 100 CD-Rs given to me by various local and independent bands (in about 10% of cases, I paid about $5, but usually they just give them to me because they want me to hear the music). This stuff is not contraband! I'm not a pirate!
The most important thing we can do is be vigilant against the notion that if something doesn't come out of mainstream channels, it's somehow inferior or illegal. The RIAA pays lobbyists like Rosen millions of dollars a year to sell us that proposition; let them know we're not buying.
I have someone stealing MY music....in Germany!! (Score:3, Interesting)
My Deep House CD [cgi.ebay.de]
Another pirated CD [cgi.ebay.de]
Contrast that to a *real* listing [ebay.com].
So, basically, this guy bought my box-set back in July. He's been duplicating my CD's and selling them in the German market for months. Despite the blatant infringement (he even took my HTML), I don't think I have any recourse. Heck, it's sorta flattering.
Re:Fair Play (Score:2, Interesting)
This one will probably be caught since the record label that was going to put it out (Caroline) has been aggressively stopping bootleggers... Since they still want to put it out eventually (legal battles within the band have kept it from coming out officially).
It'll probably definitely get caught now that I've linked it on
Ebay's VERO program isnt draconian. (Score:2, Interesting)
Prolly the RIAA bitchin away.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Crap like this is why I stopped buying CDs, BTW.
I've run thousands of listings on Ebay, and I'm pretty sure that they never go looking on their own. Your listing only gets forwarded to them if it offends someone, or if another seller wants to screw you for digging into their sales.
Try selling M$ software... I dare ya (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want to try to sneak one by: I highly recommend using a 3-day auction. It usually takes several days for them to troll the site to search for any such scandalous items!
unitedmusicians.com (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, that was interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, there is a simple answer to the eBay problem: simple and literally true. Advertise the CDs like this:
Music CD: Not Mass Replicated
The process by which major label CDs are made is called 'replication'. It's different from home CD burning or low-volume duplicating- both use CDRs, replicated CDs are stamped in an expensive (hundreds of dollars) process allowing them to be churned out faster and cheaper. It's mass production.
Anyone who seriously cares about not getting a CDR in their music purchase ought to know what 'mass replicated' means. If they don't, maybe they can guess. Again, this is literally the technical term for it- rather than saying 'CDR' you can say 'not mass replicated' which means exactly the same thing. Even some small label releases are duplicated on CDR rather than replicated, so if it matters you can't go by whether it was a pressing run, or outsourced. It's strictly about whether the CD was replicated or duplicated.
Oh, and go check out MY music [ampcast.com]- I don't mailbomb people ;) how's that for a sales pitch? "Listen to my music, I promise not to hack onto your computer and delete your mp3s, or mailbomb you, or prohibit you from reselling the CD you bought from me on eBay." This world we live in...
Re:Uh what? (Score:2, Interesting)