Why are CV multicarts considered illegal by Ebay?

[Bill Brasky]

If I list a Colecovision or a Famicom multicart auction, it is ended almost instantly, minutes after I list it, by Ebay because they claim it's illegal. Yet you can find Vectrex and GBA multicart auctions ALL THE TIME and Ebay never shuts them down. I think they treat 5200 multicarts as illegal also because I don't see them on ebay. WTF? I realize the Vectrex games were released to public domain, but they weren't authorized for resale. There's a guy in Germany making and selling Vectrex multicarts all the time on ebay. Coleco went out of business 20 years ago and Ebay is super vigilant about protecting Coleco's rights? We've all seen the MAME with 5,000 arcade ROMs auctions that ebay never shuts down and you can buy arcade machine replacement roms no problem. Anybody know what the deal is with this or what I'm doing wrong when I list it that gets them shut down over and over?

Edited March 6, 2006 by Bill Brasky

[jferio]

Odds are that someone flagged the listing after looking at it, thinking that the cart was illegal. Anything I see indicates that they only pull auctions when someone says something.

 

The one time it happened to me, I received a message shortly thereafter explaining why. In my case, it's because the software vendor required written permission before a license could be transferred.

[Tickled_Pink]

If I list a Colecovision or a Famicom multicart auction, it is ended almost instantly, minutes after I list it, by Ebay because they claim it's illegal. Yet you can find Vectrex and GBA multicart auctions ALL THE TIME and Ebay never shuts them down. I think they treat 5200 multicarts as illegal also because I don't see them on ebay. WTF? I realize the Vectrex games were released to public domain, but they weren't authorized for resale. There's a guy in Germany making and selling Vectrex multicarts all the time on ebay. Coleco went out of business 20 years ago and Ebay is super vigilant about protecting Coleco's rights? We've all seen the MAME with 5,000 arcade ROMs auctions that ebay never shuts down and you can buy arcade machine replacement roms no problem. Anybody know what the deal is with this or what I'm doing wrong when I list it that gets them shut down over and over?

1029129[/snapback]

GBA multicarts with commercial software on them are illegal. Same with Famicom and Colecovision games. I've been a bit naughty in the past and after initial successes with MAME compilations, they're now almost always pulled by eBay. It is copyright infringement unless the original copyright holders have waived their rights. After all, if you had the copyright to Pac-Man you may be a bit peeved if someone wrote an emulator for a powerful handheld some years down the line when you could be making money by licensing a new version of the game for that machine - a la GBA (yes, got the GBA version of Pac-Man for the DS).

 

Anyway, I think that's what happened with the Vectrex games. They were offered to the community by GCE so copying them would be fine.

[Bill Brasky]

Well my CV auctions are yanked almost instantly. I doubt anyone could've emailed Ebay authorities and they acted that swiftly. They must have some software bot just scanning auction titles or something. I don't know what they're looking for in the title. "multicart" can't be it because they allow other multicarts. Those GBA multicarts contain NES roms. When they cancel an auction they send me some form letter about illegal NES carts/violating Nintendo copyrights. I explain to them that I'M NOT selling anything to do with Nintendo games or systems and that Coleco is out of biz. It does no good. Yet they allow others to go on selling their pirated GBA carts all day, every day.

[Bill Brasky]

Anyway, I think that's what happened with the Vectrex games. They were offered to the community by GCE so copying them would be fine.

1029185[/snapback]

 

Yes, it's says it's ok to copy them but not to sell them for profit.

[jferio]

It's quite likely that they've got a 'white list' of allowable systems for multicarts. Auction posted, check the database. Ooh, it's a multicart, check the white list. Ooh, it's not on the white list, pull the auction and send boilerplate email to the auctioner.

 

Bad part is, if there's nobody around to tell them officially to place something in the white list, then it'll never be white listed. Since Coleco isn't around, well, don't bother.

 

This is especially bad since some of the original rights holders that licensed to Coleco aren't willing to vouch for them. It means less of their first party sales go through if they do.

 

Well my CV auctions are yanked almost instantly. I doubt anyone could've emailed Ebay authorities and they acted that swiftly. They must have some software bot just scanning auction titles or something. I don't know what they're looking for in the title. "multicart" can't be it because they allow other multicarts. Those GBA multicarts contain NES roms. When they cancel an auction they send me some form letter about illegal NES carts/violating Nintendo copyrights. I explain to them that I'M NOT selling anything to do with Nintendo games or systems and that Coleco is out of biz. It does no good. Yet they allow others to go on selling their pirated GBA carts all day, every day.

1029215[/snapback]

[Albert]

Well my CV auctions are yanked almost instantly. I doubt anyone could've emailed Ebay authorities and they acted that swiftly. They must have some software bot just scanning auction titles or something. I don't know what they're looking for in the title. "multicart" can't be it because they allow other multicarts. Those GBA multicarts contain NES roms. When they cancel an auction they send me some form letter about illegal NES carts/violating Nintendo copyrights. I explain to them that I'M NOT selling anything to do with Nintendo games or systems and that Coleco is out of biz. It does no good. Yet they allow others to go on selling their pirated GBA carts all day, every day.

1029215[/snapback]

They are definitely looking for keywords. When I list homebrew games on eBay, there is usually a warning right above the final Submit button stating that the auction will be reviewed because of its questionable nature. This doesn't always appear, so there are definitely certain words that flag it. A while back eBay actually canceled a 'Skeleton+' auction and Eric Ball (the game's author) and I had to go back and forth with eBay before they FINALLY acknowledged that it was acceptable for me to run the auction. It was like talking to a bureaucratic government agency, and even in the end I don't think they had any clue of what was going on.

 

..Al

[vdub_bobby]

AFAICT, ebay is run pretty much like a classic monopoly. They set things up to maximize profit and minimize expense for them, and what are you going to do if they done you wrong? Go to a competing (ha ha) service?

 

Monopolies notoriously have bad customer service, so there you go. They keep large companies with deep pockets happy by disallowing multicart auctions and they piss off individuals with little money and no where else to go if they cancel legit auctions and give crappy customer service.

[mumbai]

It is ... infringement unless the original [property] holders have waived their rights...

Ditto.

 

You shouldn't be selling multicarts if you don't possess licensed rights to redistribute all the titles contained within them.

 

Whether others get away with similar misconduct doesn't change the the legal and ethical issue one bit.

[SHAGOHOD X99]

If I list a Colecovision or a Famicom multicart auction, it is ended almost instantly, minutes after I list it, by Ebay because they claim it's illegal. Yet you can find Vectrex and GBA multicart auctions ALL THE TIME and Ebay never shuts them down. I think they treat 5200 multicarts as illegal also because I don't see them on ebay. WTF? I realize the Vectrex games were released to public domain, but they weren't authorized for resale. There's a guy in Germany making and selling Vectrex multicarts all the time on ebay. Coleco went out of business 20 years ago and Ebay is super vigilant about protecting Coleco's rights? We've all seen the MAME with 5,000 arcade ROMs auctions that ebay never shuts down and you can buy arcade machine replacement roms no problem. Anybody know what the deal is with this or what I'm doing wrong when I list it that gets them shut down over and over?

1029129[/snapback]

Are you a Power Seller by any chance?

If not that's why. PSs more or less get away

with murder. I've seen everything from bootleg

DVDs of movies to multicarts and more on Ebay.

...but as long as they were the Dave Espositos

of the community, they don't do shit. Then joe

everyman puts up something and it's shot down

within half an hour. I wouldn't be surprised if

a power seller got away with pawning off human

ass for the night either. But like someone else

said... what's the alternative?

 

Best way to get rid of "questionable" stuff one

is tired off is to just sell on forums like here, DP

NG.Com, Sega-Spetsnaz, and GOD only knows

how many forums out there. Of course it usually

takes longer and when you need the money is

when someone doesn't have it.

[nintendo]

Has anyone here used the epier auction site? You could probably get away with your multicart auctions there, but there is low traffic so it probably wouldn't sell well unless you told people on these forums about your auction.