Is eBay responsible for the sale of pirated products on its auction site?

PC World - Business Center: Software Group Weighs Piracy Lawsuit Against EBay

EBay's VERO (Verified Rights Owner) program, in place since 1998, allows rights owners to contact eBay and have items removed from auction listings. "We can't be the experts on what's fake or not," Sharpe said in March. "We're not the experts on counterfeits."

Earlier this month, in a similar lawsuit against eBay, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that eBay has taken sufficient steps to protect against sales of fake Tiffany jewelry items.

EBay pulled Tiffany items suspected of being counterfeit as soon as they were reported to the auction site, Judge Richard Sullivan said in his ruling. Trademark law does not require eBay to preemptively remove listings of Tiffany jewelry suspected of being fake, the judge said...

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 and other copyright law sets out strong standards for secondary copyright infringement, Kupferschmid said. U.S. copyright law allows lawsuits for vicarious infringement, when the defendant has the ability to stop infringing activity and has a direct financial interest in the infringement.
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