Belgian Court Agrees With US Court That eBay Not Liable For Fake Products

from the another-good-decision dept

Wed, Aug 13th 2008 1:00pm — Mike Masnick

Just days after Tiffany appealed the correct US ruling that eBay isn't liable for counterfeit goods sold on the site, a Belgian court has sided with eBay in a very similar lawsuit involving L'Oreal. Apparently, the Belgian courts understand how liability works a lot better than their neighbors in France, who ruled the other way in a case involving Louis Vuitton.

L'Oreal says it's "surprised" by the decision and will appeal, but fails to explain why eBay, as a platform maker, should be responsible for what people do with that platform. About the only answer seems to be that L'Oreal recognizes eBay is an easier target than going after those actually responsible (those selling the counterfeit goods). It's nice that most courts recognize that the easiest entity to sue is not necessarily the proper entity to sue.

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Filed Under: auctions, counterfeit, fraud. belgium, liability, luxury goods
Companies: ebay, l'oreal

18 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2008 @ 1:19pm

"..Belgian courts understand how liability works a lot better than their neighbors in France.."

Belgian courts understand the Belgian liability laws and French courts understand French liability laws, and techdirt apparently doesn't even understand that !
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- Mike (profile), 13 Aug 2008 @ 2:23pm
  
  Re:
  Belgian courts understand the Belgian liability laws and French courts understand French liability laws, and techdirt apparently doesn't even understand that !
  
  So you're saying that it's okay that French laws say that a 3rd party platform provider is liable for the actions of its users?
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  - Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2008 @ 11:30pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Do you seriously think French law says that ?, some bloggers will believe anything !
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JB, 13 Aug 2008 @ 1:25pm

So if I sell counterfeit goods on my website . . . Can people sue my ISP?
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Buster, 13 Aug 2008 @ 1:58pm

Sounds familiar
I'm waiting for eBay to use the YouTube excuse "Our users are constantly uploading gigabytes upon gigabytes of information and we catch some material, but it's impossible for us to catch every little thing"
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- dorpass, 13 Aug 2008 @ 2:15pm
  
  Re: Sounds familiar
  I'm waiting for eBay to use the YouTube excuse "Our users are constantly uploading gigabytes upon gigabytes of information and we catch some material, but it's impossible for us to catch every little thing"
  
  That's not a YouTube excuse, that's MPAA excuse for why it should be someone other than them policing their content online.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2008 @ 2:23pm
    
    Re: Re: Sounds familiar
    very true. along with the "it is hard to prove these people are guilty so we shouldn't have to" mentality
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- Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2008 @ 2:22pm
  
  Re: Sounds familiar
  it is more than an excuse. you try and see how many videos on youtube or auctions on Ebay that you can visit in an hour and determine beyond any doubt whether they are legit or not. after that compare them to the total number of items or videos uploaded to the site in the past 24 hrs. then do the math to figure out how many employees you need just to look at the items, track down the company that would potentially be harmed (not all videos on youtube infringe on the copyright afterall) and tack down offending material for that one 24 hour time frame.
  
  the chances are that you would need hundreds of employees working round the clock every day of the week to keep up with everything. and this is in a perfect world where it is quick and easy to determine who the copyright holder is. it is not feasible for anyone to police these sites any way other than the current system, not to mention that an attempt at doing so would drive all the customers to a different site that doesn't have such policies.
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Mojo, 13 Aug 2008 @ 2:40pm

If you go to a huge market full of vendors and someone sells you bogus goods, naturally you go after the vendor who sold it to you.

You can't sue the guy who rents the space to the vendor.
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- Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2008 @ 3:51pm
  
  Re:
  "You can't sue the guy who rents the space to the vendor."
  
  Oh yeah? Watch me.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2008 @ 4:29pm
    
    Re: Re:
    well, you can, but you won't win.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2008 @ 9:45pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      well, you can, but you won't win.
      
      But maybe he can make him settle to avoid the cost of going to court.
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PRMan, 13 Aug 2008 @ 3:15pm

The French
So you're saying that it's okay that French laws say that a 3rd party platform provider is liable for the actions of its users?

There used to be a joke when the Concorde crashed that the French government sued the maker of the building for putting it in the Concorde's way.

Apparently, the joke's not that far off.
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- Enrico Suarve, 14 Aug 2008 @ 1:42am
  
  Re: The French
  Odd joke since it didn't hit a building
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my2cents, 13 Aug 2008 @ 6:36pm

Ref: Who is ultimately liable ?
Why did the french stop with just the vendor ? Take it up a few steps higher up the ladder and sue the creator himself, for creating all of us.
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Izzy, 14 Aug 2008 @ 1:10am

It's not obvious
Without getting into specific legalities, IMHO it's not *obvious* that ebay isn't responsble for the actions of its users. The argument that ebay "just provides a platform" is a bit like saying that a municipal swimming pool "just provides some water" and if someone drowns in the pool because someone jumps on them they have absolutely no responsibility for it. In the case of the swimming pool, there would be a case to answer and a strong possibility (in the UK) of criminal prosecution. Why is ebay different? The only argument I can see is one of scale - it would be hard for them to check the validity of everything on sale - but the fact it's difficult wouldn't be a defence. Ebay provides much more than a mere platform - they are an auctioneer (they take a cut, after all) and I believe that physical auctioneers have some responsibility for verifying to the best of their abilities the authenticity of the goods they auction. So, in the interests of argument, why is ebay different?
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- Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2008 @ 6:32am
  
  Re: It's not obvious
  if we are to use the comparison to the public pool. then ebay is like the pool that posts all the rules, warns you not to swim alone, and that currently there is no lifeguard on duty, so be extra careful. if someone drowns in those conditions the pool company would not be charged with anything.
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Jon, 22 Apr 2011 @ 6:05pm

The big difference here is that eBay takes a cut. They know counterfeit goods are sold on eBay but they turn there heads because they are making a ton of money. I'm a seller on eBay and its littered with counterfeit goods. It actually effects my business and livelihood in a tremendously negative way. IMO, I think eBay is absolutely liable. As soon as you take a cut of every single item that is sold, you should be responsible to ensure the authenticity of products sold and sellers selling on the eBay platform.

It's negligent to say we just provide the platform or "meeting place" for both buyer and seller.
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