EBay fined again for selling fake Louis Vuitton goods online

September 18, 2009

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Picture taken in 2008 of the Internet auctioneer logo at Ebay-France headquarters in Paris. A French court on Friday ordered online auction site eBay to pay 80,000 euros (118,000 dollars) to Louis Vuitton for selling fake luxury perfumes, LVMH said.

A French court on Friday ordered online auction site eBay to pay 80,000 euros (118,000 dollars) to Louis Vuitton for selling fake luxury perfumes, LVMH said.

"The court found that in using key words from certain LVMH brands, eBay had commited several acts of counterfeiting," LVMH said in a statement.

It cited among the perfume marques top range Parfums Christian Dior, Kenzo, Givenchy and Guerlain.

The court ordered eBay to pay 80,000 euros to LVMH as compensation and order that it would have to pay 1,000 euros for any subsequent infraction.

In June last year, the Paris commercial court ordered eBay to pay nearly 40 million euros in damages to Louis Vuitton for selling fake luxury goods in a ruling that was cheered as a victory for copyright protection.

The commercial court had ruled in favour of six LVMH brands and also barred eBay from selling four perfumes -- Christian Dior, Kenzo, Givenchy and Guerlain -- on its websites.

(c) 2009 AFP

• docknowledge - Sep 18, 2009
  • Rank: 1 / 5 (2)
  It's the old Internet "success" story. Steal intellectual property rights as fast as they can -- while you build your company up. Later, they'll either be big enough to repay some of the theft -- or they'll be out of business. Either way, the damage is done, because international law can't keep up with the technology.
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• Roderick - Sep 18, 2009
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  I disagree. The real scandal is the backwardness of the French court system. Ebay doesn't sell anything. They provide a platform for selling and buying.
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• snwboardn - Sep 19, 2009
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  I agree Roderick it would be like suing wikipedia because somebody plagiarized, or made up a fake quote about someone.
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• bfast - Sep 19, 2009
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  This could seriously challenge the ability of eBay to function. If I was on the eBay board, I would suggest removing eBay from europe, placing it outside of their legal reach.
  
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• john41 - Sep 19, 2009
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  Don't confuse Europe with France - their legal system (the "Code Napoleonique") is different from most the rest of Europe.
  My questions - do Hollywood studios let eBay sell pirated movies? Does Microsoft let eBay sell pirated copies of Windows?
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• docknowledge - Sep 22, 2009
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  I agree Roderick it would be like suing wikipedia because somebody plagiarized, or made up a fake quote about someone.

  
  
  As it happens, snwboardn, I'm in the list of top Wiki editors. Wikipedia gets legal suits and threats of legal suits all the time. And they immediately comply with plagiarism complaints, when they are copyright violation. Usually editors don't even wait for complaints, the material is immediately removed by the first experienced editor who notices it.
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• snwboardn - Sep 27, 2009
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  As it happens, snwboardn, I'm in the list of top Wiki editors. Wikipedia gets legal suits and threats of legal suits all the time. And they immediately comply with plagiarism complaints, when they are copyright violation. Usually editors don't even wait for complaints, the material is immediately removed by the first experienced editor who notices it.

  
  
  Well then how do things like say... News readers get away with storing files? Is it just because they haven't shown up on people's radar yet?
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