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Game Companies Sue Yahoo!
Splitzy writes, "Nintendo of America, Sega of America, and Electronic Arts filed a joint class action suit yesterday against Yahoo! for the sale of illegal and counterfeit game products. They say that Yahoo! profits from these sales and is fully aware of the illegal activities. For the full story click here."
The copyright infringer is another large company. Who am I supposed to be pulling for here? :P
Are the owners of a flea market (an open market where anyone can show up and set up a table to sell whatever they want for a small fee, or even for free) responsible for making sure all items being sold are legal? Anyone know? An online auction should logically be governed by the same set of laws. Whether it is or not probably has yet to be determined.
What, you`re telling me that if you posted a message selling drugs (or whatever) on a Republican party/Big Company site chat room/message board, then they`d be responsible?
That was one of the aspects of the CDA: if you excersize editorial control over what people are posting, then you are responsible for what people post there, and do bear some liability if someone does, in fact, try to sell drugs from one of your discussion forums. On the other hand, if you excersize no editorial control (a la' slashdot), you cannot be held accountable for what others say and do.
Of course, running a discussion forum is arguably different from running a flea market or auction site, so the argument may not hold anyway. If I were the defense I'd argue the auction site is simply a discussion forum with a couple of fancy features (like storing bids and offers). If I were the prosecution, I'd compare it to a bar, which cities do close down if illegal activity is going on. On the other hand, yanking a liquor license is a coercive activity, not a penalty for criminal wrongdoing resulting from a judgement, so the prosecution could lose on that argument as well.
Either way, it is by no means a slam dunk against Yahoo. Perhaps quite the opposite, in fact...
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Why some idiot who moded this down? This is actually a very good suggestion.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
One word Shrinkwrap.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Ok, so I'm a bit rusty since I studied this stuff, and goofed a bit. The pertinent language states that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information provider". (47 U.S.C. 230) This, of course, has the effect of providing ISPs with relative immunity from liabel suits. And it has been used many times in this context, far more than just the Zeran case.
Nonetheless, the area where I was wrong (the degree of specificity to liabel) has little bearing on this matter. Yahoo is not merely a carrier of information in this context (thus 47 U.S.C. 230 should not apply). They recieve a direct financial benefit (e.g., they profit from every additional sale of pirated goods) from the infringing conduct (their role may infact exceed that). And further, they have the right and the ability to stop that conduct. This is sufficient for the test of vicarious liability. Although it is not even necessary to prove that the party had knowledge (though if that party can prove they had no knowledge, they may be excused), it can be proven by the plaintiff that they did have knowledge.
The bottom line: The CDA most likely won't stand up here (if they even decide to try to use it). Although I can not tell you exactly how the rest will turn out, Yahoo is not exactly in the clear here.
Yahoo's auction thingie is just a tool, and it's clearly not solely intended for illegal use. It seems to me that the gaming companies should have just as much a case against the pirates' ISPs, all the routers in between the ISPs and Yahoo, and all the routers in between Yahoo and the pirates' customers. They should also sue 3Com for selling modems or ethernet cards to the pirates without taking any steps to prevent them from being used for illegal purposes. And what if the pirates and their customers use a web browser to interact with Yahoo? Why haven't they sued the web browser authors? Have the web browser guys have put code in their web browsers to prevent people from using the browsers for illegal purposes?
This is, of course, absurd.
The criminals here are the pirates, and anyone who knowingly buys pirated merchandise. Not the tools and services that the criminals. If I rob a bank, you don't sue Honda, Texaco, Jiffy Lube and the owner of the road (the government) for assisting me in the getaway. You don't sue Walmart for selling me the duffel bag that I stuffed the cash into.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Don't believe everything you read.
TOS are an attempt to push liability as far away as possible. It's just like the things you get that say "this supersedes all other warranties, express or implicit". Actually, it *DOESN'T*. If the law says you get a certain minimal guarantee, you always get it, no matter what anyone says, no matter what you signed.
Imagine that you hire a hit man, and he requires you to sign a document saying he disclaims all liability or responsibility, and acknowledging that his actions are solely your responsibility. Do you think this will get him off the hook?
You can't assume that, just because something was written, it's legally effective.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Just because Yahoo isn't monitoring it doesn't mean they're not liable. That's why I talked about what happens when you actually TELL Yahoo what's going on, and they still don't do anything about it. For example, if I tell you that there's a guy selling cocaine on your front lawn, and you don't do anything about it, then you're an accomplice. (Especially if I turn around and call the police.)
What's your damage, Heather?
Today, Yahoo has $billions at their disposal that BBS operators of the 80's would never have dreamed of, and they certainly make sure that every Geocities web page displays their ad banners. Is it too much to expect them to exercise a reasonable amount of care to prevent obvious illegal activity?
The reason Yahoo can profit from this is because of their business plan. Like most web companies out there, a large part of their income comes from banner ads, thus when people are browsing the illegal auctions yahoo is racking up the banner ad views and consequently making money off of it.
I got this nice little device called a v64jr to allow me to write code for the N64 (I intended to port linux to it but it hasn't happened yet). It can also be used to pirate games. Nintendo recently sued Bung and won.
Bung has officially stopped selling these things because of a lawsuit and there web site looks like its been hit with an injunction.
The solution to this legal crap is for those of us who bought the v64jr to develop code should sue Nintendo in our own class action suit. These big companies lawyers are good at being offensive against the little guy but are clueless about going on the defensive side agasint lots of little guys. The result is the company legal team gets in arguments with the hotshot hired guns and the results that I've personally seen are entertaining.
For details about coding for the N64 see Dextrose.com assuming it comes back up.
Could some one please explain? Are they sueing Yahoo! for some direct sales action (done by Yahoo!) or are they suing Yahoo! for linking to someone else who are selling the products in question?
-- From Denmark
This article defines trivial, who cares if one business has a gripe with another. The solution doesn't lie with your typical content monitoring vs. liability bullshit that slashdotters love to sling.
The problem is where is our free unmonitored auction website so we can sell what we damn well please without yahoo or ebay dipping its greedy little fingers into our profits? Some brave soul should host this and let the official legal authorities decide whats illegal and what isn't, not by pulling ads but by gathering evidence and going after lawbreakers. But instead we see corporations abusing their powers of contract for profit and censorship (eBay) and expecting the good folks at yahoo to do the same.
What ever happened to personal responsibility and the law? Go after piraters not providers of public auctions. This legal action makes about as much sense as the waging the 'war' on drugs on lowbie street dealers while ignoring the source of incoming contraband.
In the end, we all know how ludicrous it is to try stop the copying of music/games as well as the sell of illegal drugs. Law enforcement knows this and doesn't go after every pennyante pirate, but big business thinks they should play net-cop and pulls bs like this every so often. Give it up, or come up with a algorithm that a 10-year old can't crack.
While I'm at it, where's the refund for the 'pirate' tax on the media I buy? We know they're making a profit.
I wonder whether these companies are doing this for the publicity (all P is good P and all that) in the wake of all the PSX2 publicity recently. Afterall, for copyright infingement, surely criminal procedures, involving some sort of law enforcement agency would be more appropriate than suing.
;)], and those sites carrying it, could well be playing right into their hands.
Doing it this way, gets them on all the news sites [Slashdot included, oddly
I'm not saying that Yahoo! are innocent in this, that really is for the courts to determine, what I am saying is that this is not the most appropriate means to pursue an issue like this.
--
Listening for the sound of the coming rain...
These companies obviously have noticed the people selling pirated versions of their wares, why aren't they stopping the people commiting the crime instead of shrugging off their own responsibility? After this story was posted, I found a few of the auctions in question, and they all seem to hide behind a part of the copyright law that allows backups of media. It's pretty clear they're simply using the law to their advantage, but I would think if Nintendo really wants to stop this theft, they should sue the people doing it. If it's proven in court that what they're doing is illegal, it will very quickly put an end to the rest of the people doing the same.
Really, Yahoo is doing nothing illegal here, they're just providing a service that is used primarily for legitimate purposes. This is what scares me, it sets a dangerous precedent.
Do we think auction sites should be liable for their content? Is this like ISPs being liable for what users download or read? I don't think so. "Real" auction sites have sets of laws that they must follow (e.g. Sotheby's couldn't auction a stolen 1957 Jaguar, or a counterfeit Picasso as a real Picasso). This may seem an extreme example, but the idea behind it is the same. While the freedom of the internet is important, that shouldn't mean absolute lawlessnes, ESPECIALLY if a company resides in the US. Just because they are online does not nake them some higher entity that can do no evil. -Marc
No no no not my point at all, I simply meant that non-US companies can't be held to our laws in situation X. There is simply nothing we can do about a company selling bootleg items out of for in most cases, they may not have the same copyright/trademark laws. You seem to be implying that if a company doesn't reside in the US they should be less constrained to obey laws. Insert the word "our" in between obey and laws. -marc
This is often difficult to prove in the real world (hence the reason pawn brokers exist). However if they can prove that they have regularly informed Yahoo! of prirated material, and Yahoo! has still gone ahead and sold it, then Yahoo! has knowly profited from the sale of illegal goods.
Perhaps for the case of a pawn brokers, but in this situation E-mail records can show exactly what was sent to whom, and when it was sent. Look at the Microsoft case for an obvious example of this.
While the freedom of the internet is important, that shouldn't mean absolute lawlessnes, ESPECIALLY if a company resides in the US.
What does that mean? You seem to be implying that if a company doesn't reside in the US they should be less constrained to obey laws. Or conversely, that non-US companies are more likely to break the law than US companies. Are you being a bigot, or did you mean something else entirely?
It also says just after:
You agree to not use the Service to:
... upload, post, email or otherwise transmit any Content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights ("Rights") of any party
I think it's justified in saying this covers posting pirated software.
Correct me if I'm wrong but, aren't there many precedents that have said that content providers such as Yahoo, AOL, whatever, CANNOT be held responsible for content posted to their website as long as they aren't monitoring for it and take a laissez faire hands off approach. The second they start monitoring their stuff for illegal/whatever they become liable for what they miss.
The game companies claim that Yahoo directly profits from the sale of bootleg games sold on their auctions. If that were the case, their role would be much more like a bookstore or a computer store than a neutral content carrier, and it would be reasonable to require that they police their auction boards.
However, I just looked through Yahoo's auction policies, and it seems that they do not charge any auctions fees nor get a cut from the transaction, so the game companies suing Yahoo are on much shakier ground. (Ebay on the other hand does get a cut from the transaction, so they do have to police their boards).
In the last couple cities I've lived in, there's been a free "culture" magazine paid for by nothing more than ads and classifieds. A paper equivalent of Yahoo's auction, sorta. I can't ever think of seeing an ad for illegal anything in there, and I bet that's probably not coicidence, I'm sure they simply don't accept them because there's liability in it for them.
And you bring up another interesting point - that Yahoo is primarily used legitimately. What if their service was primarily being used for illegal purposes -- say something like, Napster?
Tough issues. My two cents is that certainly Yahoo should be active about removing anything called to their attention, at minimum. Beyond that it is a tough call. As far as suing the actual pirates stopping piracy -- no more than all the millions in jail quickly stop others from repeating the same crimes. Some crimes, like piracy, underage drinking, pot smoking, etc, are simply so rampant they are impossible to effectively enforce. And making an example of the big fish, or a couple random smaller fish, doesn't do much to dissuade the masses.
I have 67,000 copies of MS Windows 2000 for sale. They are a little gold-looking, but they work fine!!
Hold on a second. The person selling the game starts by saying that it's for backups only and that you must own the game already. Then, 5 sentences later, he's goes into why you should buy it and why if you don't have it, you must add it to your collection. Sorry, I think that shows he doesn't have a clue that putting up a legal disclaimer before breaking the law doesn't work.
kwsNI
Extracted from Yahoo! Auctions guidelines...
Ownership of Data
When participating in Yahoo! Auctions you may provide us with information about yourself and/or products and services listed. You grant Yahoo exclusive rights in all of this information, and all information derived or generated from it, in all existing or future media. These rights include but are not limited to the right to display your information anywhere on Yahoo's services and media properties, to search the information, and, consistent with our privacy policy, to repackage and resell it to anyone for any reason. As used in this paragraph, information includes but is not limited to data, text, photographs, drawings, sound recordings, feedback, and any other information or data displayed or presented in connection with your listings and bids on Yahoo.
Open a branch office in Taiwan
House their servers there
Publish that all auctions are subject to the laws of Taiwan
Better still - do it in Malta. They may need to build the telecom infrastructure from scratch, but an invasion and censorship from the mainland Chinese is less of a threat.
Stephen Hawking has written another book. It's about time as well.
Basically if I knowingly act as a broker for illegal, stolen or forged goods then I am breaking the law.
Nintendo of America Inc.'s general counsel, Richard Flamm, said in a press release today that his organization has advised Yahoo! "many times" of the easily identifiable counterfeit goods...
This is often difficult to prove in the real world (hence the reason pawn brokers exist). However if they can prove that they have regularly informed Yahoo! of prirated material, and Yahoo! has still gone ahead and sold it, then Yahoo! has knowly profited from the sale of illegal goods.
I don't like Yahoo!'s chances. Getting them to change there site or the way that they post goods for sale is a completly different question.
"Do you think we could wipe out world hunger forever if scientists figured out how to make AOL's Free CD's edible?"-
Actually, from what the article said, it seems like they alerted Yahoo to the sale of illegal and infringing items and Yahoo did nothing about them. The article implies this happened many times, not just once or twice.
The companies see how easy it is for eBay to stop these types of auctions and won't stand for Yahoo just ignoring them. And eBay does... A friend of mine was selling Rare CDs, still in the shrink wrap, with cd-rs of the same cds (so that you wouldn't have to open the shrink wrap) and they cancelled his auctions, even though he was selling the cd-r with the original cd. So eBay manages to keep on top of illegal auctions pretty well and the game companies expect Yahoo to the same.
There really is no confusion here- the companies are well within their rights to try and put a stop to this. I mean, I don't really think they care that much about the high school kids who copy each other's games (not to mention those sort of "pirates" are impossible to catch), but if you are copying someone else's work and selling it... That's just wrong.
josh sisk
On the other hand, there's probably a negligence issue at stake. (I'm too lazy to look up the code sections, sorry) If Yahoo was reasonably informed by other parties (In this case, NOA, at least) that illegal transactions were occurring in a space that Yahoo! provided, Yahoo! is (I think) required, even under common carrier status, to go shut it down. If they don't, it's a case of willful negligence, and I'm pretty sure they're liable for it. While some people have pointed out that Yahoo! doesn't claim to screen for content, and state that they're not responsible, the fact that Yahoo! provides the forum for auctions/trading means (I think) that if there's illegal activity, and they know about it, they're required to do something about it.
Hope this isn't too far from reality--lawyers?
(Just to wear my bias on my sleeve, I'm a game developer who has been in the biz for about 7 years now).
The meatspace analogy would exactly be the persons responsible for maintaining order in the space of the auction -- the city government, police, etc. You can be certain that if there were a public auction of illegal goods, and someone notified the cops of this but their response was "sorry, we're not responsible", heads would roll.
As someone who makes games for a living, I think that this is an important issue that has to be responded to. While there will always be outlets for pirates to traffic in their illegal goods, aiding and abetting such practices, especially under the guise of electronic freedom, is just encouraging amoral behavior.
One interesting, somewhat related anecdote from longer ago in the games industry: when Ultima Underworld came out for the PC, it had no copy protection. It sold reasonably well, especially for the time. However, it sold around (IIRC) about 1.3 times as many hint books as copies of the game! Somehow, I doubt people were just buying extra copies of the hintbook.
The fact is that we are at a point in the cycle of copying technology such that casual piracy is a big threat to the livelihood of the software developers. As a society, we have to do everything that we can to work against people just looking to steal others' work, lest we lower the quality of generated work overall.
-- Rob "Xemu" Fermier
But that's the whole point!!
Correct me if I'm wrong but, aren't there many precedents that have said that content providers such as Yahoo, AOL, whatever, CANNOT be held responsible for content posted to their website as long as they aren't monitoring for it and take a laissez faire hands off approach. The second they start monitoring their stuff for illegal/whatever they become liable for what they miss.
Wasn't there a case w.r.t. AOL in a similar manner? AOL couldn't censor unless they wanted to be held responsible for not censoring everything?...what was the deal there?
You can get a device that plugs into the cartridge port of an N64 and connects to the parallel port on your pc. You then use the pc to store rom images and send them to the N64 depending on the game you want to play. Easy copying as the images are small........
Troc
PS Not trying to promote piracy or anything, I just happen to know that :)
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
i cant see it being too hard to flag messages that contain certain words (warez, backup, cdr etc) for manual inspection, provide a `complain about this item` option, etc...
Unfortunately, according to portions of the CDA which were not overturned by the supreme court AFAIK, once a content providor starts excersizing editorial control of any content, they become liable for all content on their site, regardless of whoever posted. By doing absolutely nothing, Yahoo may well have protected themselves legally, despite what this lawsuit purports. Certainly in terms of criminal law this appears to be the case.
Of course, the civil courts could go the other way, putting all ISPs and content providors in the ugly position of being vulnerable criminally if they do excersize editorial control, and being liable civilly if they do not. Given the vagaries of our so-called justice system, this kind of absurd result would not suprise me one bit.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
EA, I can understand why they might be pissed. Their items could be copied to CD-R, from PSX/PC format.
What about Nintendo, who put out stuff on cartridge?
Are we talking pirate cartridges here? Same for Sega, IIRC, Dreamcast games can be pirated, but it's gonna cost 10G for the hardware to do it, so it kind of puts off the casual pirate.
Is this about piracy, or are Nintendo/Sega getting heavy with people reselling their cartridges, as I seem to think they were threatening something similar in Japan.
Worse though, it how that would affect smaller companies that want to allow high levels of interactivity, but don't have the resources to police that activity. With a meatspace analogy, who would be Yahoo? Say if people liked to sell these game copies on street corners in a particular town, would Nintendo be suing the town?
As far as I'm concerned, this isn't Yahoo's responcibility. It would be different if they specifically catered to people selling illegal items.
Nintendo & others need to bite the bullet and attack the real culprits if they want something done about all the petty pirates. But that would drain their resources, so instead they try to drain Yahoo's resources.
It's actually rather sickening if you think about it.
I think the really interesting point here is what precedent this will set for online auctions?
:)
Assuming that Nintendo et al. win, it'll set a precedent such that online auctions are liable for everything they auction - not that that's a bad thing IMHO but it would require vetting of every item that's put up for auction in the future. Somewhat time consuming and a bit annoying in this digital age
It would als mean an end to exciting auctions such as body parts, Carol Vordeman etc......
Do we think auction sites should be liable for their content? Is this like ISPs being liable for what users download or read?
Troc
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
and this only protects them from liability in libel cases. Although the bulk of the original CDA was struck down on Constitutional grounds, those parts remained. Expecting service providers to monitor speech would have a chilling effect on free speech, because it is an impossible demand, and would force ISPs to walk a very fine line. In other words, ISPs are essentially granted strong immunity from libel suits, so long as they don't play an active role in promoting or creating it. The issue with censoring comes into play, in that by doing any censoring they expose themselves to liability in that they're providing some assurances as to the information provided.
Contrast this with Yahoo being informed in a provable manner by the owner of the intellectual property that it is, in fact, pirated. They're entirely different. Nor do I think it is an unreasonable demand that Yahoo does some auditing of their auctions, there are precedents for this.
You understand that all information, data, text, software, music, sound, photographs, graphics, video, messages or other materials ("Content"), whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, are the sole responsibility of the person from which such Content originated. This means that you, and not Yahoo, are entirely responsible for all Content that you upload, post, email or otherwise transmit via the Service. Yahoo does not control the Content posted via the Service and, as such, does not guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of such Content. ... Under no circumstances will Yahoo be liable in any way for any Content, including, but not limited to, for any errors or omissions in any Content, or for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any Content posted, emailed or otherwise transmitted via the Service.
Since they have this is in their terms of service, surely the person who posts the stuff that they are suing for are liable for it rather than Yahoo?
When Slashdot has a public forum which they make clear that they do not prohibit or censor anything, there is protection. In Yahoo!'s case, they appear to be involved in the transaction if they take a cut, like E-bay does. If memory serves, Yahoo!'s auction site is a free service, in which case, it may have common carrier status.
However, if they are notified of illegal activity, they may have an obligation to take it down. I think that the DMCA may include such provisions, but I am not certain. Much like an ISP has to take down a web site if they are notified of criminal activity, Yahoo! no doubt has to take down an auction when notified of criminal activity.
My question is, are they demanding that Yahoo! proactively intercept illegal commerce, or only that Yahoo! remove it when notified. Additionally, how to they know that it is illegal? I mean, "this is a cdr copy" implies that it is illegal, but "this is a legitamet copy" could be a lie and it could be an illegal copy. I wonder if this will include fraudulent sales masquerading as legal ones or merely the advertised illegal sales?
IANAL
.oO0Oo.
In the UK an auction is partly a clearing house for possibly stolen goods that third parties have acquired not knowing if they were stolen or not.
The auctioneer needs to publicly state that there will be an auction in a fixed place, at a fixed time.
It is then your responsibility, if you have had items stolen, to attend the auction to see if any of your goods are on sale. If there are you can have them back (not sure what the burden of proof is). If they are sold then the person buying them is secure in the knowledge that you cannot go to their house and say "hey that's mine - I'm having it back".
It's a system that dates back to long ago when I suppose everybody in the neighbourhood would attend and get their stolen turnip back.
In that case it's not a concern of the auction house if things are stolen.
However someone who duplicates CD's is breaking copyright not stealing. There are laws to prevent counterfeiting which auctioneering is not protected from.
One thing that does puzzle me though is why the game companies are involved at all. In the UK cases concerning counterfeiting are generally the handled by a joint operation between the police and the local trading standards office (a local govt. body). In this way the injured parties are abstracted from the process.
It is supposed that the purchaser is also a victim rather than a criminal. If I buy copied products I have been swindled out of my belief that I was buying an original. The buyer is expected to act with due dilligence (no Gucci suits for $30) but I'm not sure of the penalty for not being 'dilligent'.
That does leave me with one question though. When I go to Spain and buy my Game128 and put in my Gameboy it doesn't present me with any license agreement. The packaging looks professional and of the 128 games in the cartridge I have only seen the names of a couple of them before. Am I free to go ahead without fear of penalty believing it to be a legitimately licensed product?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Surely not. The people sueing them never agreed to these terms. If the suit was by some buyers who had gotten ripped off, the ToS would matter. But a judge and/or jury is going to decide whether Yahoo has a responsibility to prevent trafficing in illegal goods over their site. They can't avoid the law by saying "oh but we said we weren't responsible, so we're not!"
To put it in other terms, if Bill Gates had included a little line in all his exclusivity and bundling contracts stating "this contract does not represent an attempt at a monopoly and is not meant to infringe on any third party's attempts at compitition" Do you think the DOJ would give a flying you know what with a rabid weasel?
Terms of service establish the relationship between the two or more parties that can read and agree to them. They mean diddly squat when an effected third party challenges the legality of one or more parties actions.
If anything, I would think that these ToS will work against Yahoo, since they seem to let buyers and sellers know that Yahoo won't be interfering with illegal sales, even if they have knowlege of them. Exactly what the plaintifs are charging.
IANAL, IMHO etc.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
I used to be roommates with a guy who sold bootleg concert CD's for a living. Ebay has a few employees that proactively search for illegal items like bootlegs, and they're so effective that the guy could only put bootlegs up for auction on the weekend, when the staff wasn't working. When a staff member finds you selling bootlegs, they can (and do) cancel all of your current auctions - not just the one auction they found.
In addition, Ebay lets you e-mail these "policemen" and tell them about illegal items, and they'll take action.
Yahoo doesn't do any proactive checking whatsoever. You can inform Yahoo that auction #123 is an illegal bootleg CD, and they don't stop it. Most of the time, they don't even acknowledge you. They never penalize you, and they certainly never cancel your account - he's been using the same one since auctions.yahoo.com got started.
I can see why Yahoo is doing it - they're trying to capture market share in any way possible, and let's face it, if they offer cool stuff that Ebay won't allow, then people will get interested. If you browse through Yahoo's auctions, you can find pretty much any bootleg on the planet, and a decent selection of pirated software.
Yahoo is getting hit up by these guys because they (Yahoo) are totally irresponsible about the legality of what they're allowing their users to auction off. Somebody could probably put slaves up there and sell them. Come to think of it...
What's your damage, Heather?