 VeRO for Dummies - Copyright Rules on Ebay
Found this article written nearly 5 years ago. How little things change!
In 1997, eBay created VeRO or the Verified Rights Owner in order to comply with the regulations of the soon to be established Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DCMA. Designed to protect against online copyright infringement, the DCMA was enacted in 1998 by the US Federal Government.
According to title II of the DCMA, or the online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, online service providers such as eBay would not be responsible for copyright infringement on its site if safe harbor guidelines are followed.
In order to obtain the safe harbor, eBay must not have knowledge that material on their site was infringing upon a copyright. Furthermore, eBay would have to block access to fraudulent or illegal products following notification from the copyright holder.
In other words, in order for eBay to observe legality and keep out of court they would have to immediately pull items which copyright holders claimed were counterfeit. The VeRO program has been eBay’s means of legal compliance.
VeRO was created by eBay to protect against fraud. It enables intellectual property rights owners to request the removal of listings that infringe upon copyrights. In this process, a notice of claimed infringement is filed, requesting an item be removed from eBay. At that point, eBay immediately removes the item from their site.
Because there is great potential for deception when purchasing products online (just because an online seller says a product is X does not mean that it actually is X) the benefits of VeRO are significant. VeRO protects both eBay customers and copyright holders from any injustice. Through VeRo, buyers can be more secure about their purchases (imagine you just paid $500 on a designer purse just to find it was a ⊗⊗⊗⊗!) and copyright holders can shield themselves from misuse of their copyright by sellers. Ultimately VeRO reduces the number of fraudulent sales.
This is not to say that VeRO is a perfect system. In fact, many honest sellers find VeRO procedures unjust. Since VeRO does not confirm the identity of the copyright holders or the validity of the claim itself, honest sellers are left vulnerable to unfounded accusations.
Although title II of the DCMA also includes a counter-notification process which requires restoration of the material if the claims are false, this can be a long and arduous process for honest eBay sellers who find their products pulled or accounts suspended needlessly.
As part of eBay’s VeRO regulations the VeRO member claiming copyright infringement is not required to state why the item is infringing, only that they believe it is infringing. The seller is only provided with the basic contact information of the VeRO member filing the complaint and the VeRO member is not required to respond to seller’s questions.
As a result, an eBay seller accused of infringement may very well find items pulled and their account suspended with no thorough explanation. Although VeRO claims it will attempt to step in at that point, in the end, it argues legality, stating that the matter is out of its hands. It’s an issue of maintaining concordance with federal law.
There are other problems with VeRO. Even if an eBay seller is found innocent and the merchandise is reinstated, the record is not cleared. The eBay seller’s account will still show the claim of copyright infringement leaving the seller vulnerable to potential permanent shut down. VeRO members who make false claims again and again are not reprimanded in the least, leaving them free to bombard sellers with willy-nilly accusations as they please.
Many eBay sellers find accusations against them unfounded but take no action. Whether intimidated by the corporate monster, confused by the ethereal and complicated counter-notification process or simply disenchanted, eBay sellers frequently find themselves feeling helpless once their items are pulled or accounts suspended.
In 2001, an eBay seller was accused of violating copyright infringement when they used copyrighted fabric to make tissue box covers. The eBay seller challenged the accusation; finally settling out of court when the company backed down.
From that time, the eBay seller has fought copyright infringement claims from many other major corporations and has come out ahead. Claims that using a copyrighted materials in the creation of something new have, as of yet, been unsupported. Imagine, for example, one creates a dollhouse from ice cream sticks. Does the maker of the ice cream stick have a right to claim copyright infringement? This is the issue at question.
One might argue that this is a matter for federal determination. Until the federal government creates more definitive laws regards copyright, there will continue to be disagreements over what constitutes copyright. Following this line of thinking, the eBay seller is now determined to take further cases to court where precedents can be set and, if need be, new laws enacted to protect innocent eBay (and other online) sellers from unfound accusations. In the long run, defining the law would benefit copyright holders as well as they would know exactly what belonged to them and what didn’t.
Of course VeRO is not blameless in all this. There is much VeRO can do to remedy the situation. Despite all the good it does do, it’s obvious that eBay’s VeRO program needs to be restructured. This presents a challenge for eBay, as VeRO itself was created specifically to comply with federal regulation. VeRO’s processes are a derivative of that law.
That said, VeRO has little or no check and balance procedures in place. When VeRO receives a claim of copyright infringement, they do no work to ensure that the claim is valid. This creates a problem for sellers, copyright holders and customers. When a legitimate product is pulled, both sellers and copyright holders lose revenue. Likewise, customers lose selection.
If, instead, VeRO had a trained staff to specifically address these claims, eBay sellers and copyright holders would find there were significantly fewer mistakes made along the way and customers could be secure in their purchases.
There are certainly good and bad aspects of VeRO. While it protects buyers and copyright owners from corrupt sellers, it also leaves honest sellers extremely vulnerable to corruption themselves. | 
