Ebay sellers GW watches you !

[RHerneson]

VERO\'ed past the elbow!

:flame:
I too was VERO’ed this week. Three auctions pulled and ONE WAS A FARKING GW FIGURE!!!
The other two clearly stated that they were Reaper figures but ‘Warhammer size’. Why say that? Well, the LotR game is 25mm, Reaper also now does 30mm, so I get some people that ask ‘what size is the figure?’ I’ve even put 28mm in the farkin description and had people ask, ‘is that the same size as Warhammer?’ I don’t really want to go into the minutiae of ever point of the auctions, but just point out that this was clearly no attempt to defraud Games Workshop nor damage their name.

Of course eBay will bear no culpability in any of this. They also give you no recourse or forum. The one forum on the VERO practice hasn’t had a moderator answer questions in months! Nor do they require the company making the allegation to have a page listing their rules and regs. They optionally have them if the company wishes, but would the gits at GW take the time for that? Nope.

So, I wrote Hugo Pritchard, Solicitor and explained that at least one auction was for the sale of their crap. Now, please note, the letter Hugo Pritchard, Solicitor got was polite and formal, not like this. What did I get? A FARKING FORM LETTER! They don’t even read their farkin mail!

So fine. Not really a problem. They want to be petty and show how little leeway they are willing to allow in exchange for a friendlier image, I can deal with that.

First thing I did was to talk to my friendly local game store (FLGS) and let them know about it. The FLGS owner paints and sells some things online too. Now, of course, his interest is in moving product not salving my scrapes, so clearly he’s not going to tell them to get stuffed, however he has decided not to carry GW paint as his main line anymore, instead going to Reaper and Vallejo. We also agreed that I would not need to build a Blood Bowl arena at my FLGS, for obvious reasons.

Next, I made the half dozen on-line retailers that I deal with aware of the situation and let them know that because of the harassment by GW I would not be purchasing GW products anymore. I would of course provide them with my business for other products as they had them, but if they felt inclined to let their sales reps know about the situation, that was a matter of their business interests.

I then let the patrons on my mailing list know that due to GW’s harassment I would not be painting GW figures anymore nor accepting any commissions to paint GW figures.

And, most recent, I am letting all of you, as well as any other painters of talent know about the situation.

We’ve all know the litany of issues that go along with a GW discussion, cost, quality, customer treatment and so on, so I won’t belabor that here again. Suffice to say that a person is known by the company that he keeps, and that includes his business relations. Many people here don’t care to be associated with GW, but that is each person’s decision.

Am I petty? Perhaps? But I am the customer and GW gets to make a choice with every action it takes. Some actions can profit them, others, like abusing and harassing a customer over minor issues can cost them thousands.

RH

 

[Chern Ann]

GW doesn\'t like eBay. Why should it? GW doesn\'t see a rat cent from any of the auctions of 2nd hand goods. GW would be much more happy if no one out there resold a single GW figure, ever (as would I, as a shareholder).

eBay basically treads a fine line trying to appease the large trademark owners so that they don\'t become embroiled in a counterfeiting lawsuit. The rationale is simple: I\'m letting YOU, the trademark owner, police your own trademarks. Just let me know if someone breaks the rules. Therefore if someone is counterfeiting your stuff and selling it on MY site, don\'t come crying to me later, YOU\'RE the one who dropped the ball.

For the above reasons, GW will probably want to be as over-zealous and unreasonable in its policing as eBay will let then, so it\'s up to eBay to control this. If eBay is abdicating that responsibility, then this is as much eBay\'s fault as GWs.

 

[Valander]

Resale != Counterfeit

Originally posted by Chern Ann
eBay basically treads a fine line trying to appease the large trademark owners so that they don\'t become embroiled in a counterfeiting lawsuit.

The only problem I have with that statement is that resale of an item is nowhere near the same thing as \'counterfeiting\' an item.

Counterfeiting would involve making illegal copies and attempting to sell them, or otherwise distribute them, as the real thing. Buying something and then selling it later is not. Regardless if the item has been modified (in this case, painted), it is still the original item, and is not a duplicate.

Personally, I think the whole legal system is totally screwed up in regards to trademarks and patents. But, since that\'s not really a painting subject, I\'m not going to go into it...

That said, I will most likely continue to paint GW figures for commission and sale on eBay or through other venues. I will, however, take note of the particularities with GW\'s strong-arming legal tactics, and make sure to start including a standard legal trademark disclaimer. (e.g., \"Warhammer, GW, Games Workshop, Citadel, 40K, and your mother are all trademarks of Games Workshop. Their mention here is in no way a challenge to ownership of said trademarks.\")

 

[RHerneson]

Just another sale

Chern Ann, GW may not make a penny on the resale, but where do you think the original came from? GW sold a fig.
And if a person sells one for a good price, do you think they might try it again, so GW sold a fig.
And when people saw that I would get them good results for their money and they could have a cooler looking army, so they bought more units, guess what? GW sold a fig. And another and another and another.

In otherwords, you should be happy because eBay is promoting GW and serves as a selling venue for retailers.

No where do I dispute GW\'s right to defend their trademark. I do suggest though that their \'no tollerance\' tactics cost far more than they protect and will, in the end contribute to their failure.

eBay is also guilty for slack customer service as well. They should make sure the allegation is true before taking action. According to the letter I got for GW I broke none of their rules when selling a GW fig but my auction got pulled the same.
eBay provides no guidelines from GW and gives no access to communicate with eBay for disagreements.
So whey does eBay side with GW? Easy, GW has lawyers waiting and I don\'t. (Ok, do, but choose not to act). and why should eBay care? They can get sellers and bidders anytime and they also know that fads come & go and 5 years from know it\'ll be some other big dollar fad company with the same issues.

GW has simply acted in a way that has made it where I don\'t care to be know to associate with a company that uses those kind of business practices. My reputation is worth something to me.

RH

 

[vincegamer]

Balancing

First, I\'m pretty sure Ebay pulls challenged auctions because that\'s how the law works: they don\'t have to monitor stuff before putting it up, but if it is challenged they have to pull it immediately and then it\'s up to the poster to rebutt. At least that\'s an analogy from web hosting.

Balancing:
There is a balance and GW may be tipping over. The theory that resale hurts is that someone leaving the hobby sells their stuff to someone new to the hobby. That new member would otherwise have had to buy from GW so GW lost those sales. Resale = bad.
But sometimes someone gets introduced by picking up cheap stuff, then goes on to buy new stuff after they get \"hooked,\" so GW gets sales they wouldn\'t otherwise have had.
Resale = good.
GW has determined that resale takes away more sales than it brings in. However, by vigorously policing resale, they are creating bad customer relations, costing them sales, so they may be tipping the wrong way.

Personal story: I bought a shoebox full of minis all tossed in and broken for $35 thinking there might be some gems in there and maybe I could present the others well to make a few $$ for fun on Ebay. Turns out the box contained roughly 2000 points worth of high elves, only a couple broken, and a few odd others. Friend has an empire army. So instead of selling, I went out and bought the Warhammer book and the High Elf book, new bases for the minis missing them, replacement bitz for the broken minis (griffon leg etc.), even some GW paint, thus adding sales GW would otherwise have not gotten.

 

[number9]

resentment

I have no problem whatsoever with GW protecting their trademarks on ebay to the extent of the law and the policies of e-bay. After all it is their trademark and I have no \"right\" to use it how I see fit just to hawk a few extra minis.

I don\'t think enough of you give dedicated e-bay BUYERS enough credit. Serious e-bay-ers and even many casual ones will continue to search for something until they have exhausted all reasonable avenues. For example when I\'m looking for various OOP 40k ork models, below is my standard search pattern, each morning:

SEARCH 1:
oop 40k ork -(painted, lot, squad, unit, CCG, BFG, EPIC)

SEARCH 2:
oop 40k orks -(painted, lot, squad, unit, CCG, BFG, EPIC)

SEARCH 3:
oop citadel ork -(painted, lot, squad, unit, CCG, BFG, EPIC)

SEARCH 4:
oop citadel orks -(painted, lot, squad, unit, CCG, BFG, EPIC)

SEARCH 5:
oop orc -(painted, lot, squad, unit, CCG, BFG, EPIC)

SEARCH 6:
oop orcs -(painted, lot, squad, unit, CCG, BFG, EPIC)

SEARCH 7:
old ork -(painted, lot, squad, unit, CCG, BFG, EPIC)

SEARCH 8:
old orks -(painted, lot, squad, unit, CCG, BFG, EPIC)

All this is to say that I think buyers in general put more thought into how to find what they are looking for on e-bay than most sellers put in to how they label their auctions. As a seller, you don\'t need to try and dupe us with extra keywords you \"think\" we are looking for. Play the auction straight without any tricks or mis-spellings, and buyers will find it if thats what they are in the market for.

Using trademark names guaranteed to register hits on your auctions that do not offer that trademarked product annoys me as a buyer. Even if it is good advertising, it doesn\'t make me want to bid on your stuff. If I wanted a rackham fig I\'d search for \"rackham\". Whatever I may think of GW as a company has nothing to do with my understanding that they have a right, and often a need, to police their trademarks.

--number9

 

[halon]

While I can understand the frustration with GW policing it\'s tade mark on ebay it really is just the rules of the game. While I have sold Warhammer suitable terrain on ebay I don\'t generally go there to purchase GW product. When you can purchase whole armies on bartertown for 1/2 price or pick up selected figures at discounters at 30% off why bother? In the last couple of years I\'ve found 5 stores in easy driving distance from my home that have decided to drop the line and have discounted the ^&*# out of the remaining stock. So ebay may be convenient for selling stuff quickly but it\'s hardly the best place to pick up figures. And since many players are not completely convinced that the retail price is actually worth it It makes selling painted stuff just that much more difficult.
So perhaps GW has made the process marginally more difficult to sell, but it\'s likely there was no money there to begin with.

 

[Garyo]

E-bay and

For an individual I find E-bay is very slow to respond to my request to kill somebody elses auction that is violating copyright. I had a few auctions that somebody nicked my posted pictures and then used those same pictures to sell mini\'s. I reported this to the fools at E-bay, as fruad and copyright violations. They promtly responded a week after the violating auction closed. Bad E-bay!:flame:

Now for UK copyright and trademark law... GW has come kilometers away from being a loose band of blokes making games to entertain and delight. They are a publicly traded corperation. UK law errs very heavy on the side of the corperation. The corperation owns their copyrights and trademarks and any derivative. Think about that for a moment if you use any GW copyright or trademark or semblance of them for profit GW has the right to shut you down. Is it right? I don\'t think so:moon:, but then the law is on their side. So beware.

 

[RHerneson]

For Sale: Nameless item that might be small & could be metal, but we can\'t legally say.

I think you all are missing the point. I have yet to read a single person suggesting that GW does not have legal right to their names. I am suggesting that they exceed their better interests though in too strong an enforcement practice.

Let me remind you, I was selling a GW figure!

By this same reasoning no used car lot should be able to name the brands of cars they offer. No person on eBay or any where should be able to tell you the brand name of anything they sell anywhere if they are not a paid sales person for that company.

I\'m just one person, but because people would by GW figs and bring them to me to paint for them, GW sold a few more figures.
No More.
Now, what if 5 or 10 or 20 people like me take the same decision because of GW\'s heavy-handed approach? While its maybe only hundreds or thousands of dollars on our case, how\'s that old saying go? \'A million here and a million here and pretty soon you are talking real money?\'

Babylonian productions, the parent company that made the TV show Babylon 5 had to take a decision that Paramount also had to take. They had to decide if they were going to shut down people that used their TV show\'s images & sound clips and strictly enforce their rights of copyright & trademark.
Paramount took the heavy hand and faced massive resentment and a swell of angry fans. Anyone notice how the last Trek movie did in the states?
Babylonian Productions took the decision that as long as it wasn\'t used to unfairly deprive the company of due royalties and if they were acknowledged as the owners, people could make use of their names. That decision was one of the many ways that B5 was promoted & grew.

GW has enough trouble with their image as it is. Poor figure quality, unreasonable prices, revision after revision of the rules, and so on, they don\'t need to add to their troubles by this kind of pettiness.

Anyone ever had Reaper shut down one of his or her auctions? Exactly.

How much does a good reputation cost?

RH

 

[pitynoman]

PRICELESS

Originally posted by RHerneson


How much does a good reputation cost?

RH

That is one of the best arguments I\'ve heard on this thread....eloquently put too!

 

[No Such Agency]

Off Topic

Paramount took the heavy hand and faced massive resentment and a swell of angry fans. Anyone notice how the last Trek movie did in the states?

For the record, I suspect the reason that Star Trek: Nemesis did poorly is because of people like me who went to see it and then went around warning everyone that it was a mountain of crap. But you are correct that Paramount pissed off a lot of people with their heavy-handed and knee-jerk cease-and-desist letters. Old-fashioned media company, old-fashioned top-down concept of how their fans should enjoy the product. I\'m not sure what GW\'s excuse is, except that they are probably the top target of piracy, knock-offs and re-casts in the mini business. That sort of thing tends to turn a company\'s legal department into a pack of Cujo\'s... for right or wrong.

 

[WarHAMMER]

VERO\' ed

My auction has been VERO\'ed and pulled as well. I\'ve been sellling various items on ebaysince 1998. The current Warhammer category on ebay was, from my perspective, much more generalized in the merchandise sold there previously. I see the ebay listing area as a category only. if GW is seeking to claim trademark on that, I am in favor of scrapping the Warhammer category which should be replaced with a new Painted Miniature category. This would alleviate the problem of having to list fine pro painted Reaper miniatures with Heroclix and other garbage because GW now hogs what has been since 1998 the prime listing category for minis of all brands. That is why Warhammer is put in auction titles. Its
the main mini ebay category. there is no other reason and GW can blow it out their bagpipes.

Now I know there\'s all kinds of whiny babies out there who are wanking about
how it is offending them to have other mini
brands in the category, these are the same whiny babies who email me complaining about the price of a fig I spent 15 hours on,
and expect to get 20 pro painted minis for
a lousy 20 bucks, when the reality is I\'m
getting 300.

A note on GWs use of the VERO program.
I find them as threatening as they find me.
I have been painting for 15 years and I will
continue to paint minis of all brands. By
pulling my auctions , they infer to me I must
paint only trees (GW minis). I\'ve already painted hundreds of their minis, I would
also like to paint the streams and mountains sometimes (a variety of other minis).
It is clear to me their tactics are to stop
the sale of other miniatures through threat.
They have hindered my selling about $50
worth of Reaper minis. I currently have about $5000 of GW product and have probably spent about $500-$700 on their product anually over the last 15 years. This will now change to ZERO dollars of GW minis I will buy. Why? Because I can\'t risk losing my ebay membership over their
interference. I sell other unrelated products
on ebay and my miniature income is only about 15% of my income in relation to the
other items I sell.

An unhappy GW former customer of 15 years.

 

[Sturmhalo]

All this has got me a little worried. I sell painted GW models on Ebay and I always categorise models correctly, but now I wonder when the mighty GW are gonna come calling and pull my auctions just coz they don\'t want me making money off their product! I can\'t see any reason for my auctions to cause a problem, but then again I\'m not a lawyer and I don\'t have any great insight into the legal system.

 

[Big Mean Elf]

The corperation owns their copyrights and trademarks and any derivative. Think about that for a moment if you use any GW copyright or trademark or semblance of them for profit GW has the right to shut you down. Is it right? I don\'t think so:moon:, but then the law is on their side. So beware. [/quote]

>That is bull shit man,so If you buy a GW item,and don`t want it painted converted or other wise...they can say \"NO,you must keep it,only we can sell our stuff\"....Fuck them man!

This is rediculus!

And it stinks of germany 1943!

:]

 

[Big Mean Elf]

Originally posted by Sturmhalo
All this has got me a little worried. I sell painted GW models on Ebay and I always categorise models correctly, but now I wonder when the mighty GW are gonna come calling and pull my auctions just coz they don\'t want me making money off their product! I can\'t see any reason for my auctions to cause a problem, but then again I\'m not a lawyer and I don\'t have any great insight into the legal system.


>Dude the day they tell me I can`t sell there shit after I paid good money for it from any legal and reutabile seller....will be the day I luanch an all out war on them............and will never buy there products,ever......

I don`t see where they get off butting into private lives....I mean you and I are selling our property and artistic skill at this point,and they are not morally or legally abel to tell us we can not sell what belongs to us,by vurtue of our patronage of there product and our talent as artist.

That would be like a canvas company telling us we could not sell out paintings,becuase we used there products to make our art.

It is evil,and it is bullshit!

 

[War Griffon]

This sounds very much like GW will be suing the big auction houses such as Southerby\'s next if their early stuff ever goes there for auction?

Does this then mean that if the likes of any living relatives of some of the great painters who\'s paintings sell for millions at these places can sue because they are not getting any of the revenue.

I always thought that the arguement over a trade name was in its use i.e you could not use their trade name in order to sell your work but giving credit to the trade name for the initial issue/cast of the mini was perfectly legit.

It all sounds like GW are trying to play a microsoft game?

 

[vincegamer]

Elf, I\'m guessing you are in the USA where we are a bit less generous to artists. What\'s that? Less generous?
Well yes. Sculptors, painters etc. in Europe create works of art and have some say over what is done to them afterwards.
In the US there is the Visual Atrists Rights Act which protects limited forms of art, but for everything else (where minis fall) there\'s a \"first sale\" doctrine that basically says the buyer can do whatever he wants to the object, including resell, repaint, destroy.
Now California is a whole different country in that they do require royalties to an artist for any resale of the work within a certain number of years, so if a painter sells a painting for $100 and it later auctions for $2000, in CA the reseller has to give some $ to the painter. I doubt that would apply to painted mass-produced merchandise.

It is probably the case that GW objects to the use of its trademarked title Warhammer. I don\' t know trademark law, but it seems likely that it is protected only against false or misleading use of the name.

 

[pitynoman]

Originally posted by Warhammer


brands in the category, these are the same whiny babies who email me complaining about the price of a fig I spent 15 hours on,
and expect to get 20 pro painted minis for
a lousy 20 bucks

Don\'t you just hate that!? Sheesh if it\'s that much of a problem don\'t bid,instead of wasting time out of theirs and mine busy day .

 

[Big Mean Elf]

Originally posted by pitynoman

Originally posted by Warhammer


brands in the category, these are the same whiny babies who email me complaining about the price of a fig I spent 15 hours on,
and expect to get 20 pro painted minis for
a lousy 20 bucks

Don\'t you just hate that!? Sheesh if it\'s that much of a problem don\'t bid,instead of wasting time out of theirs and mine busy day .

>
:duh:

>Yep...yep...I`ll buy your GD winner...that you put your heart and 2 months work into...I`ll even pay you $15.00!

What do you mean it`s \"NOT\" for sale at that price??!!

Well O.K. it is neat and I think it will look good in my army,so I`ll go $20.00

Can I send you a personal check?!


:flame:

:moon:
FU game boy...die now!

:innocent:

 

[pitynoman]

DITTO

I know we disagree on occasion,but glad to see that touched a nerve:innocent:
cause I know when I get those emails......
:flame:reality fade out....mental image fade in \"a happy place\" ...\"repeated low kicks...snapping both kneecaps...knees and elbows to the head ....followed by a mount ...repeated strikes to the head and face to within inches of life\" reality fades back in \"happy place gone\"....and an empty feeling that some bastard just wasted five minutes of your time with an annoying email totally devaluing 10+ hours of work.Yeah I don\'t take that personally