Mmm, yeah. Except eBay is supposed to be competing with Amazon as an HONEST website. And side from whatever royalties the book thieves are stealing away, and aside from the damage done to the publishing industry and to libraries (if you don't want to buy, go to a library), here's a fact:
The EBAY parasites are NASTY BASTARDS with no soul. Instead of getting a slap on the wrist, five aliases, and apathy from morons at Random House and Digimarc, they should be reported and removed ASAP.
Take THIS guy.
Among his items? Of course, a Random House hack (E.L. James), the "Wimpy Kid" series, and, oh, a fake charity demand. Yes, this guy's use of Internet technology involves grabbing an eBay ID and swindling people for $10 donations that supposedly go to a British cancer victim.
Only this guy is not in Great Britain is he? How about SERBIA. How about TEXAS?
But first, take a closer look at the "Cancer Victim" hoax:
First off, if eBay sellers want to raise money for charity, they have to pick an eBay-approved charity where the money definitely goes to the REGISTERED charity via Paypal. Ebay isn't GoFundMe. They don't want con-artists. Sellers are not allowed to simply claim "all the money goes to charity."
Note that the seller in this case claims he is in TEXAS.
Funny, he registered in SRI LANKA.
The percentage of parasites from Sri Lanka who steal books and sell PDF downloads on eBay is huge. Probably 50% are from Sri Lanka. Ebay shrugs.
This seller was reported about five days ago. Yes, the guy has no right to offer a fake charity auction. Yes, the guy also is playing the scam of "I own copyright" on the books he's copied. And yes, he should not be claiming to be in Texas if he's registered in Sri Lanka. But has this auction or ANY of his auctions been stopped? Mmmm, not yet. Ebay's wheels of justice grind a bit slow. When they grind at all.
For the record, the "Wimpy Kid" auction in which the guy claims, as they all do, that he "owns the copyright" to a famous book series.
This guy would've been suspended long ago if individual authors, like Mr. "Wimpy Kid" or the overfed E.L. James bothered to send in takedown requests at eBay.
Likewise, it would be helpful of rich fatcat book companies (who claim they have no money when they dole out advances to most anyone BUT Mr. "Wimpy Kid" and overfed E.L. James) kept an eye on eBay. Digimarc, supposedly experts at finding abuses, missed Random House/Penguin's "Grey" series from this guy. Then again, Random House has a very random policy on piracy.
Our hipster book-thief and charity con artist even tosses a photo of himself (or somebody he'd like you to think he is) on his EBAY PAGE, along with some tripe about how wonderful the world of technology is.
It would be helpful if authors and publishers, who pretend to be caring, intelligent and up on good causes, took a few minutes to simply file takedowns. Isn't PIRACY a good cause? Isn't keeping con artists from exploiting people with phony charity requests and dupe PDF files a good cause?
It would also help if "we're just a venue" eBay took fast action when complaints are reported to them.
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