# According to eBay, it's legal to sell other's ebooks there



## amy_wokz (Oct 11, 2014)

Will someone please explain what I'm missing here?

https://www.ebay.com/sch/dotiehun0/m.html?_trksid=p3692

I called eBay to question this practice and was told it was perfectly legal. Blows my mind.


----------



## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

How are those auctions even still up? It straight up tells you to ignore the sentence about how "Sending it by email or by any other digital delivery method is not allowed and violates eBay policy."


----------



## amy_wokz (Oct 11, 2014)

From what I can tell, the ebay seller account was opened about a month ago from Viet Nam.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

It is almost impossible to legally resell an ebook this way, at least in the US. Very few stores actually sell ebooks. What you pay for is a license to the content, which limits your rights to what you can do with it. Even in the rare cases where you do own it, you almost always have to agree to a license agreement which does not include resale rights. Amazon has patented a system where they can transfer the licenses bought in their store between Kindle users, but apparently even they realized that was a very bad idea and have never implemented it as far as I can tell. 

Per the Kindle TOS: "Kindle Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider." It's pretty much the same for all the other distributors. Unless this ebay seller has obtained resale rights from the author or publisher, this is almost certainly illegal no matter what eBay says.


----------



## Guest (Feb 19, 2018)

It is not legal. Either the person you spoke with didn't understand your question or didn't look closely at the listing. 

Which is why you never call about these things. Use the "report item" option to report copyright infringement (which is what I just did). They are making unauthorized copies of copyright protected material and selling.


----------



## Moe D (Dec 6, 2017)

I don't see the report feature but I'm looking for it. I agree, the eBay rep likely didn't understand or didn't care.


----------



## amy_wokz (Oct 11, 2014)

I reported it. That "button" is hard to find. Then I sent one of the infringed upon authors a message on his Facebook Page.


----------



## Anna_ (Jan 18, 2015)

I reported it. Wow, that was not an easy button to find. It's off on it's own in the middle of nowhere. I love how the "seller" essentially indicates in the ad that it violates policy. Hopefully it will come down shortly.


----------



## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

I searched for ebooks and came up with some others. This one says it's an ebook in the title -

https://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Wife-Between-Us-by-Greer-Hendricks-and-Sarah-Pekkanen-eBOOKS-Epub-PDF/263497184420?epid=237425024&hash=item3d59a7f4a4:g:HJwAAOSwfpVZHixf

- all the info indicates a print version until you get to the bottom of the page when you discover it's an e-version.


----------



## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

No reason to worry about this. If people want to rip us off, they will go to torrent sides and pirate it. Honest readers will stick with their usual sources 99.9% of the time.

Note: I'm not saying don't report it if you come across it. I'm just saying it's a waste of energy worrying about it.


----------



## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

The seller has been an eBay member since Jan 26, 2018. Doubtful they'll be around much longer now that they're being reported for pirating.

Of course, another one will pop-up to carry on in about a nanosecond so it's a pointless game of whack-a-mole.


----------



## Moe D (Dec 6, 2017)

David VanDyke said:


> No reason to worry about this. If people want to rip us off, they will go to torrent sides and pirate it. Honest readers will stick with their usual sources 99.9% of the time.
> 
> Note: I'm not saying don't report it if you come across it. I'm just saying it's a waste of energy worrying about it.


I'm not worrying about it, nor am I wasting too much energy on it, however, the way I see it this is eBay and I'd expect better from them. If people want to risks torrent and pirate sites, knock yourself out, but eBay is a legit business and they should stop it now before others get ideas.

As for reporting it, wish I could, but I don't have an eBay account.


----------



## Moe D (Dec 6, 2017)

Alan Petersen said:


> The seller has been an eBay member since Jan 26, 2018. Doubtful they'll be around much longer now that they're being reported for pirating.
> 
> Of course, another one will pop-up to carry on in about a nanosecond so it's a pointless game of whack-a-mole.


I don't see it as pointless. If enough people report this maybe eBay will tighten up on this kind of stuff and it will stop happening. And if they don't know how do they stop it?


----------



## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Moe D said:


> I'm not worrying about it, nor am I wasting too much energy on it, however, the way I see it this is eBay and I'd expect better from them. If people want to risks torrent and pirate sites, knock yourself out, but eBay is a legit business and they should stop it now before others get ideas.
> 
> As for reporting it, wish I could, but I don't have an eBay account.


 Wow, I was curious so I clicked on the "report" link in incognito mode and it's prompting me to sign in or register for an account. Surprises me they require an account to report shoddy/suspicious listings.

We'll have to disagree on the pointlessness of it. That's just my opinion on what to worry about/spend time on in this business.


----------



## Guest (Feb 19, 2018)

David VanDyke said:


> No reason to worry about this. If people want to rip us off, they will go to torrent sides and pirate it. Honest readers will stick with their usual sources 99.9% of the time.
> 
> Note: I'm not saying don't report it if you come across it. I'm just saying it's a waste of energy worrying about it.


I think we should take these much more seriously than typical piracy. These people are taking money from unsuspecting customers who may think this is a legal copy. I feel an obligation to protect consumers, who may not realize this is a problem.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> I think we should take these much more seriously than typical piracy. These people are taking money from unsuspecting customers who may think this is a legal copy. I feel an obligation to protect consumers, who may not realize this is a problem.


Given the number of big names like John Grisham and Dan Brown that were in that seller's inventory, passing the word along in that direction might accomplish a lot more. Their publishers take piracy seriously, and they've got the legal clout to apply a very big cluestick to eBay and make it much harder for anyone to follow in this seller's footsteps.


----------



## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

KelliWolfe said:


> Given the number of big names like John Grisham and Dan Brown that were in that seller's inventory, passing the word along in that direction might accomplish a lot more. Their publishers take piracy seriously, and they've got the legal clout to apply a very big cluestick to eBay and make it much harder for anyone to follow in this seller's footsteps.


They sold 16 items so far. Not surprising it's the big sellers like John Grisham and Dean Koontz.


----------



## amy_wokz (Oct 11, 2014)

Alan Petersen said:


> They sold 16 items so far. Not surprising it's the big sellers like John Grisham and Dean Koontz.


I messaged Koontz on his Facebook Page.


----------



## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Wow. They're still up and running. I thought eBay would be faster once the reports came in.

I'm sure John Sanford's publisher is just thrilled that they're offering a PDF version of his latest book for $3 when they sell the e-book versions for $15 on Amazon.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Deep-Freeze-by-John-Sandford-EBOOKS-Instant-Delivery/162903250057?hash=item25edca5489:g:zRQAAOSwAz5ahS6j


----------



## Ros_Jackson (Jan 11, 2014)

I couldn't find the "report" button, so mentioned it on Twitter. Sometimes companies are faster to respond when it's public.


----------



## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Ros_Jackson said:


> I couldn't find the "report" button, so mentioned it on Twitter. Sometimes companies are faster to respond when it's public.


Might have the opposite affect and readers will rush off to buy it


----------

