Ebay vs. Musician

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."

Comments

Ebay's odd about things.

[dave-fu]

I work with a guy who was unable to sell his Apex DVD player on Ebay because the MPAA got all in a tizzy saying that people were modifying the players to be region-free yadda yadda yadda. The fact that he advertised it as an "original, unmodified" version meant nothing and Ebay repeatedly put the kibosh on his auctions even though he had talked to "customer service" and explained that this was an unmangled off-the-shelf model.
So he gave up trying to sell it and burned the mod disk and now he can't stop raving about the import DVDs he can watch. I'm bitter because Breakin', Breakin' 2, Beat Street, Rappin', The Best Of Weird Weekends and all other sorts of DVDs I'd love to buy will likely never be released stateside.
And still the pirates march on on Ebay; pirates keep on doing their thing without being hassled by the man while people who do things by the book get fucked. I love intellectual "property" law.

Learn to state your case clearly

[jdavidb]

I sympathize with the man completely, but I wish he didn't let himself get sidetracked so easily. I would have sent a letter back that clearly and simply stated:

Your policy says CD-R's can only be sold by the copyright holder and only if the seller indicates this in the description. I am the copyright holder of the music on these CD's and clearly said so in my description, but you have removed my auctions. You have made this mistake twice. Please give me some assurances that I can sell my music in accordance with your policy without having my actions removed. Thank you.

I hate not being able to get a human to talk to me. He's frustrated enough from having them remove his auctions after a cursory glance that didn't even check to see if he followed their policy, and not being able to find someone who will talk to him about it makes it worse.

I also think his "can't sell this on ebay" logo is invalid; that would violate the right of first sale, wouldn't it; the right to resell anything you have bought? Part of fair use, last I checked.

Except they're not, if you had RTFA

[kiwimate]

The guy's web site clearly states that he complied with all E-Bay rules. He is the copyright owner, which he stated in his listings.

He also gives screen shots of other E-Bay listings which are blatant rip-offs.

He also points out that E-Bay claimed that someone else had supposedly said they were the copyright holder. When he wrote back to them asking to know who was making this false claim so he could protect his copyright, E-Bay responded with a letter which ignored his request.

Good grief. Read the article. Idiot.

Re:CD-R?

[jdreed1024]

So just sell it as a CD.

Uh, no. A CD is not the same as a CD-R. A CD consists of a plastic substrate with a thin layer of reflective material (usually aluminum, sometimes gold in higher-quality discs) embedded in it. The aluminum has small pits (or bumps, depending on your point of view) in it, and this is how the laser differentiates between 1s and 0s.

A CD-R has a plastic substrate, with a layer of reflective aluminum , and on top of that, a layer of (usually green-blue) transparent dye. It is impossible for a laser to make the pits and bumps in the aluminum layer with the precision required. Thus, it doesn't. What it does, is heat up the dye at specific places. When the dye is heated, it becomes opaque, thus blocking the aluminum layer from view. Thus, the reading laser sees bumps where the opaque dye is, thus creating 0s. So, a CD-R is essentially initialized to "1", and by "burning" it, you create zeros where necessary.

Because of the method used to produce CD-Rs, they do not have the longevity that regular CDs have. Excessive heat or sunlight can break down the dye-layer, causing read-errors. These errors can be compensated for (Sony/Phillips specs say that a CD must be able to have a 1mm hole drilled anywhere in the disc and still be read perfectly), but eventually, the CD will be unreadable.

CDs on the other hand, are pressed, not burned. They are created similarly to the way records were. A master glass (yes, glass) disc is created with a photo-reflective layer, and a laser is used to burn off the photo-reflective layer in portions (thus creating the 0s). That master is then "electroformed" to create the metal presses (which are the inverse of the surface of the CD). The presses become part of a mold, and the actual CD is injection molded, and picks up the microscopic bumps from the mold, which create the bumps on the CD itself. These molds can then be used over and over to make CDs extremely fast. Really, it's pretty much identical to the way a record used to be made, with a matrix, and then pressing onto vinyl. Because they are pressed, CD's are not as affected by environmental conditions. (Unless it gets so hot that the disc warps, but, well you've got other problems if that happens).

And that, kids, is why you can't advertise CD-Rs as CDs.

Re:CD-R?

[jerrytcow]

There is a defference in the physical media, which is what the poster was referring to. A CD-R copy of a CD may be identical bit for bit, but the actual disc in not the same.

A retail audio CD (or any other for that matter) is pressed. The data track is reflective, and pits are formed which change the reflectivity.

A CD-R has a clear dye layer and a reflective layer. The dye layer is heated by the laser during burning which causes it to become opaque. A CD-RW is essentially the same, but the dye can be changed from transparent to opaque like CD-Rs, but also opaque to transparent with different temperatures.

I'm an independent House DJ....

[ewwhite]

....and I've been selling my house mix CD's for over two years on eBay to VERY favorable reviews. I mix these live at home, or record live sets from my club gigs. I duplicate using CD-R's, since most duplication houses won't press REAL CD's in quantities of less than 1000 units.

I've never had an issue with eBay throughout all of this. I don't state explicitly in the auction listings that these are CD-R's. That's unnecessary information. It's all about the content at that point. I think their violation-detection process is poor. I've had auctions forcefully cancelled for using words like "ass" (as in "Funky-ass house mix CD") or using the real titles of some of the raunchier tracks I play. It happens, though.

If y'all want to hear some good house music, hit up my website.

CDR's on eBay

[Dr. Awktagon]

Well, I've run into this policy a few times, not for my own music, but for music from CD-R-only labels. A lot of independent electronic musicians that I listen to are on small "bedroom labels". And when I sell some extra CDs on eBay I like to sell those too. They are NOT illegal copies, they are legit, original, sometimes with hand-made and hand-numbered inserts.

I've tried all the following:

1. "This is a CD-R."
2. "This is a CDR."
3. "This is a C.D.R."
4. "This CD is from a CD-R only label!"
5. "This CD is green on the bottom, if you know what I mean."
6. "This CD was made in someone's bedroom."

The only one that was pulled was #1. They might've expanded their filter to catch #2 or #3 but that's how it was when I was testing out variations.

Note that in every auction containing "CD-R", I noticed in my logs the next morning that a machine from eBay's netblock came and viewed the auction. Due to variations in the user-agent, and because sometimes they visited twice in the space of a few minutes, I believe they have a Real Live(tm) employee do it. What a wonderful job, eh? And they ONLY pull the auction when it clearly and unambiguously says the item is a CD-R. So I guess if you want to keep them busy, put "THIS IS NOT A CD-R" in all your auctions.

Nowdays, I just don't bother saying it's a CDR or anything. This music is obscure enough that the buyers usually know, and nobody's complained. Great policy, huh? In the meantime, people are selling unauthorized CDRs left and right, and they don't get caught.

I saw this one guy selling CDs without good descriptions or pictures.. I checked his feedback.. full of negatives because he was basically selling homemade "mix CDRs" and not advertising them as such. His feedback was also full of positives saying "great rare CD". So his business was doing all right from the many suckers out there. Shouldn't they shut these guys down first? Not to mention the guys selling 80GB hard drives STUFFED FULL of big-label MP3s. "Delete the ones you don't have CDs for" Yeah right!

So although it is within eBay's legal rights to arbitrarily do shit like this, it's a mind-numbingly stupid, ineffective, and purposeless policy. They just do it to satisfy the big labels. This guy should simply imply what it is, and not write CD-R anyplace in the auction. Or he could do like I did, put a bunch of auctions with subtle variations and learn which get pulled and which don't.

And oh, yeah don't put any "naughty words" in the auctions (I have no idea what the list of naughty words are, except "fuck" and "shit" are on it). They used to allow them in song titles, but now the drones move them to the "Adult" category with the hardcore porn.

And don't even bother writing customer support, they'll send you a syrupy "thanks for your business, but that's how it is" form letter.