eBay Shuts Down Ultima Online Charity Auctions

An Anonymous Reader writes "Numerous players in Ultima Online are donating vitual gold to "Crazy" Joe Harden. Harden started some eBay auctions with the best of intentions, giving all the proceeds to the Red Cross for the tsunami disaster relief. Unfortunately, Ebay has decided to shut him down. Here's a quote from the article over on FileFront: "The auctions were for in-game gold in Ultima Online. What Harden did was set up places within Ultima Online where players could come and either buy 'junk,' as he called it, or simply donate gold to be auctioned off on eBay. After setting up 43 auctions, things were running smoothly until eBay pulled every single one of them off of their site." We reported on this effort yesterday.

Comments

Spirit of the 'law' vs. Letter of the 'law'

[numbski]

Seems straightforward enough:

Ebay doesn't want to set a precedent.

You let him do it, why can't I?

The honorable thing here would be to back this guy up and applaud his efforts. UO obviously is cool with it, but E-bay doesn't want people making a habit of it, so they pull the plug.

I'm sure no one over there is reading this, but listen up...the spirit of your rules were to protect copyright owners against misuse. The letter of your rule states that you can't sell virtual goods.

I don't think the spirit of your rule is being harmed by a charitable giving of those online. Don't shy away simply because the letter of the law forbids it.

It sucks SO BADLY that everyone is afraid of being sued. That's precisely why this is being shut down. :(

I could go on a huge rant on how I would like to trust people around me and not constantly feel like I must protect myself from litigation. *sigh*

Should've read the article first

[numbski]

Knee-jerk reaction.

eBay doesn't suck in this case I guess. He can still do the auctions, but has to carefully word how he puts it up.

I'd just put up

CrazyJoe UO Ultimae Online Tsunami Gold

That should say plenty there (I think?).

He can't mention the Red Cross. :\

Re:Some important points missing from summary

[GoofyBoy]

> but the way the write-up puts it makes things seem as though things are a lot more outrageous than they are

How much responsibility do the slashdot editors have when it comes to this?

If you read the write up, it implies something ("eBay unfair and against charitable works!") yet if you read the link (or do a search on google) its a totally different story ("Charitable works not done properly.") Even once sentence at the end "Ebay has a policy to prevent fraud in a charity name, autions are planned to be reposted at a later date." would have made the story more balanced.

Considering how many people will not read comments, don't the editors have a responsiblity to be more reflective of the truth and not being so ... tabloid-like?