Edited price and got C.O.P.S warning ?

[MeToYou]

I have been on ioffer for years and today I just decided to edit the price on an item and as soon as I clicked submit I got a message the item has been removed by C.O.P.S and is under review. There was no info on which COPS member it was or why. I also can't understand why this would happen as the item had been for sale for years on there and COPS member obviously had not removed it before. What triggers this on just editing the price ? Is it the listing name or the description ? It was a DVD I was selling.

[MM78]

Phake or real dvd?

[MeToYou]

Retro home made DVD of footage from the 80's. So technically not real, but not copied from commercial either, and footage on it has never been on sale.

I would not dispute if they say the material on it may be owned by someone, but what confuses me how just editing something triggered a review, I wasn't listing something new. All I can think of is someone else copied my listing title (other sellers in the past have bought items from me, and re-sold, with the EXACT same description and header title), got kicked off for their other items, and now the header title is auto blacklisted or something. Looks like ioffer consider editing an item as though you are re-listing it. I had the item on ioffer since 2009 and rarely edited it.

Once before I had some wrestling on there that a company told ioffer to remove, which they did and I never re-sold them. Not had any C.O.P.S action before though, and given this is a review they haven't manually seen the item, just been triggered. I only ever knew of Warner being part of C.O.P.S but I guess others are too.

[jeffweico]

Warner Brothers is particularly aggressive as they are one of the largest providers of content and they have a lot to lose. But other studios are a part of it including Lionsgate, Fox and others.

The fact is, whatever you are selling is probably a copyright violation. If somebody filmed it somebody owns it. Just because it has not been on sale before or has not been shown on TV or in the movie theaters really makes no difference.

There is a myth that if something is not commercially available, then it is OK to copy it and sell it, but that is not true. Somebody STILL owns those copyrights. It is just that the owner of some cheesy made for TV movie from 1977 is probably NOT going to employ an army of attorneys to go after people selling ten copies per year.

I would just apologize and stop selling whatever it is. From your description of the item involved, I don't think they are going to come after you for millions of dollars. They probably just want you to stop selling it. Of course if you are threatened by them in any way, then your best course of action would be to speak to an attorney who is familiar with copyright law.

It is also possible that they will review the item and simply drop it.

[topofthepops]

ioffer thinks your changing price to circumvent the fees, the same happend to me.