Moet Champagne for everyone...Ebay loses another one...

A French court ruled this morning against eBay in yet another "stop selling counterfeits of our stuff" suit. Following up a recent ruling in favor of Hermès against eBay, the court today awarded LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) approximately $60.9MM...finding eBay had done little or nothing to stop the sale of fraudulent items on their site. With luck, Tiffany (who recently found that 80%+/- of "their" jewlery on eBay was counterfeit), Patek Philippe and others will follow suit (pun intended).

Pity the ABAA lacks standing to sue them for the countless number of bogus "signed" copies of various tomes that litter their site. Bookdealers are going to be dealing with EBay forgeries for decades and beyond as these "great buys" enter the secondary market. The worst will be caught by dealers who pay attention...then only requiring the uncomfortable experience of telling the current owner that they got ripped off. The better ones, who knows...but I wager it will cost the profession money (in buying back a bad signature, driving down the "value" of signed copies lacking solid provience and/or pushing many of us to avoid signed copies as much as possible).

Do not get me wrong, eBay serves a very useful purpose and can be an good venue to both buy and sell...but few places should the term caveat emptor remain top of mind...

eBay has said they will appeal. I know they like to stick with thier "we are just a marketplace, we can't be held responsible for the malfeasence of our sellers", but I think they are (eventually) going to lose on this claim. The legal term is "willfull blindness" and eventually they will have to do something about it...but only when the cost of suits/fines exceeds the commission from fraudulant sales.