Regarding why eBay disallowed Pandora listings

[DavidBowman]

I meant to post this a while back, but I forgot. I thought it might interest some of you, so why not?


The reason that eBay wouldn't initially allow the Pandora to be sold is simple: Sony.


I used to build and sell PSP Pandora battery kits on eBay right after they came available. It was a different time in my life, one of buying and selling a lot of stuff on there, and I was quite happy to purchase batteries and memsticks and turn them around for a small (and easy!) profit.


Well, long story short, Sony got wind of the PSP hack and pressured eBay into removing all of the auctions! Not only that, but Craigslist (I see the irony here too) also censored the word "Pandora" for a while. I could NOT post an ad for one until I took out the word "Pandora".


So Sony shat on everyone and it remained a censored term on eBay until our little gem of a handheld came along. Two things came of this: I stopped using eBay because I got kicked off for selling something that has never been established to be illegal in the US (and I refused to sign their affidavit stating that I agreed that I did something wrong and wouldn't do it again), and I wound up with a bunch of spare PSP batteries. Anyone want one?


Thus concludes my story. I hope you found it informative.

 

[WizardStan]

I asked ebay directly. They said it was because the listing mentioned emulation which, in their mind, is exactly equivalent to promoting piracy.

 

[DaMummy]

both of you are right, ebay does also have an auto-trigger for the word pandora, and of course you cant sell pirated stuff on there, even though it gets done all the time

 

[DavidBowman]

It's very typical of eBay to say something like that, while still having the very same thing available on their site. For example: eBay search


^^ Most of those mention emulation.


I never got a straight answer out of eBay, and I know other sellers who've had plenty of problems with them. Their moderating is very random and haphazard. When I questioned why my auctions were being pulled while identical auctions were still up, they would not give me a straight answer. Eventually, all PSP Pandora battery auctions were taken down.


Here's one that blatantly says that it includes ROMS: ZX Spectrum


Lots of stuff goes under their radar. However, I don't find it surprising that an auction with the term "Pandora" was taken down given my experience.

 

[second exodous]

I can see why they do it though, they don't want the lawsuits. I think they're big enough that they could just fight it off though, I think in the end that would bring a lot of people into e-bay just because they would respect them for that. I think e-bay is one company that bad publicity is not good, people loose trust for it when they see it in the news and would stop using it if they fraught Sony on this. Selling crap over e-bay is in itself pretty scary, buying is worse for someone who has never done it.

 

[Prometheus]

Their moderating is very random and haphazard. When I questioned why my auctions were being pulled while identical auctions were still up, they would not give me a straight answer.

My understanding is that it's mostly automated, which would probably explain why it's seemingly random, and why you couldn't seem to get a straight answer.

Lots of stuff goes under their radar.

Some speculate that powersellers that rake in a lot of money by selling such things get overlooked, although I have no idea if there's any truth to that.

 

[ZXDunny]

Here's one that blatantly says that it includes ROMS: ZX Spectrum

It is perfectly legal to sell a Spectrum emulator with included ROM images, so long as you make it clear that you are charging for the Emulator, and that the ROM images are being given away for free.


D.

 

[DavidBowman]

I can see why they do it though, they don't want the lawsuits. I think they're big enough that they could just fight it off though, I think in the end that would bring a lot of people into e-bay just because they would respect them for that. I think e-bay is one company that bad publicity is not good, people loose trust for it when they see it in the news and would stop using it if they fraught Sony on this. Selling crap over e-bay is in itself pretty scary, buying is worse for someone who has never done it.

You are, of course, completely correct. They do not want the lawsuits. I hate how the threat of a lawsuit, whether it has merit or not, is enough to get something stopped. The little guys can't defend themselves, so they have no choice but to bow down. A lot of good programmers get caught in this trap.

Their moderating is very random and haphazard. When I questioned why my auctions were being pulled while identical auctions were still up, they would not give me a straight answer.

My understanding is that it's mostly automated, which would probably explain why it's seemingly random, and why you couldn't seem to get a straight answer.

This is true. The customer service team that is supposedly there to respond to problems doesn't seem to have the authority to reverse a decision, however, meaning that if your auction gets pulled, it's going to remain pulled. My beef with them was that their rules were not evenly applied.

Here's one that blatantly says that it includes ROMS: ZX Spectrum

It is perfectly legal to sell a Spectrum emulator with included ROM images, so long as you make it clear that you are charging for the Emulator, and that the ROM images are being given away for free.


D.

Except that the seller says that the emulator AND the games are for sale in that auction. To the best of my knowledge (in most cases in the US anyway) it is not legal to include ROMs as ROMs are supposed to be your own personal backup of a game that you legally own in a physical way (i.e. cartridge), and you are not able to distribute them.


If you were to sell a hacked PS3 and advertise that you have several games stored on the HDD, but you're only selling the console and that the games are just there, how well do you think that would go over?


Anyway, I don't mean to get off into a legalities discussion. I just wanted to mention that I had first-hand experience with eBay and I knew why there were problems with listing a Pandora there.

 

[ZXDunny]

Here's one that blatantly says that it includes ROMS: ZX Spectrum

It is perfectly legal to sell a Spectrum emulator with included ROM images, so long as you make it clear that you are charging for the Emulator, and that the ROM images are being given away for free.


D.

Except that the seller says that the emulator AND the games are for sale in that auction. To the best of my knowledge (in most cases in the US anyway) it is not legal to include ROMs as ROMs are supposed to be your own personal backup of a game that you legally own in a physical way (i.e. cartridge), and you are not able to distribute them.

You are able to distribute Spectrum ROMs anywhere in the world; Amstrad Ltd have given their express permission (they are the IP/Copyright holders for all the Spectrum ROMs) provided that the seller does not charge for the ROM images, just the emulator/duplication costs.


D.

 

[second exodous]

I can see why they do it though, they don't want the lawsuits. I think they're big enough that they could just fight it off though, I think in the end that would bring a lot of people into e-bay just because they would respect them for that. I think e-bay is one company that bad publicity is not good, people loose trust for it when they see it in the news and would stop using it if they fraught Sony on this. Selling crap over e-bay is in itself pretty scary, buying is worse for someone who has never done it.

You are, of course, completely correct. They do not want the lawsuits. I hate how the threat of a lawsuit, whether it has merit or not, is enough to get something stopped. The little guys can't defend themselves, so they have no choice but to bow down. A lot of good programmers get caught in this trap.

Isn't e-bay pretty big? They aren't one of the little guys, they could keep things tied up in court longer than Sony would want to fight it I would think. I think it is like netflix, freaking brilliant idea for a company, it was something people needed or wanted, depending on how you look at it.

 

[DavidBowman]

You are able to distribute Spectrum ROMs anywhere in the world; Amstrad Ltd have given their express permission (they are the IP/Copyright holders for all the Spectrum ROMs) provided that the seller does not charge for the ROM images, just the emulator/duplication costs.


D.

I did not know that they were released to the public, mostly because of my complete ignorance of that system. Still, the exception that proves the rule.

Isn't e-bay pretty big? They aren't one of the little guys, they could keep things tied up in court longer than Sony would want to fight it I would think. I think it is like netflix, freaking brilliant idea for a company, it was something people needed or wanted, depending on how you look at it.

They could, but honestly Sony probably could afford to stay in court longer. They are a MASSIVE conglomerate. We probably hear about them most because of video games, but they've got their tendrils in a lot of different areas. And honestly, I'm not sure what eBay's motivation would be to fight that.


My issues are with the US's legal system, which isn't likely to change. But if we had a loser-pays system then it would be a different ballgame. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening in my lifetime.

 

[Prometheus]

I did not know that they were released to the public, mostly because of my complete ignorance of that system. Still, the exception that proves the rule.

I'm pretty sure that that applies to the system ROMs, and not tape images of most games, though. (Correct me if I'm wrong, of course.)

 

[Silent-Hunter]

You are able to distribute Spectrum ROMs anywhere in the world; Amstrad Ltd have given their express permission (they are the IP/Copyright holders for all the Spectrum ROMs) provided that the seller does not charge for the ROM images, just the emulator/duplication costs.


D.

I did not know that they were released to the public, mostly because of my complete ignorance of that system. Still, the exception that proves the rule.

Isn't e-bay pretty big? They aren't one of the little guys, they could keep things tied up in court longer than Sony would want to fight it I would think. I think it is like netflix, freaking brilliant idea for a company, it was something people needed or wanted, depending on how you look at it.

They could, but honestly Sony probably could afford to stay in court longer. They are a MASSIVE conglomerate. We probably hear about them most because of video games, but they've got their tendrils in a lot of different areas. And honestly, I'm not sure what eBay's motivation would be to fight that.


My issues are with the US's legal system, which isn't likely to change. But if we had a loser-pays system then it would be a different ballgame. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening in my lifetime.

Do you mean winner-pays? We have a loser-pays system, don't we?

 

[craigix]

When they pulled our Pandora auction I never even thought about the Pandora battery! I'd bet it was that and not emulation which triggered it.


'Piracy device'. Of course!


Everything is coming together in my head about their strange behavior now.

 

[Tickles]

When they pulled our Pandora auction I never even thought about the Pandora battery! I'd bet it was that and not emulation which triggered it.


'Piracy device'. Of course!


Everything is coming together in my head about their strange behavior now.

Someone (Darfgarf?) pointed this out at the time and it made sense to me too. Their automated system just picked up the words "Pandora battery" and pulled it.

 

[ZXDunny]

I did not know that they were released to the public, mostly because of my complete ignorance of that system. Still, the exception that proves the rule.

I'm pretty sure that that applies to the system ROMs, and not tape images of most games, though. (Correct me if I'm wrong, of course.)

Absolutely - The only "ROMs" you're going to find in that package are the system ROMs (which may be distributed for free), as there were only 10 game ROMs ever made for the Spectrum and not generally worth playing. The included emulator in that package can't load the game ROMs, so it's unlikely they were included.


D.

 

[moxie]

That is, of course, something of a question of definition. People seem to call tape dumps (.tap, .txz and so on) "Roms" as well, even though technically they are not. But no, the idea of program carts never quite caught on, did it? Is there anything that came out on cartridge that didn't also come out on tape?


Then again, for the spectrum we have World Of Spectrum, where most anything that has ever run on any sort of speccy derivative is listed, and most of them are playable or downloadable straight off, and legally as far as I can gather. Those games whose IP owners don't want to distribute the old games are clearly marked and the game is not available. I don't know how that applies to redistribution, though.

 

[ZXDunny]

That is, of course, something of a question of definition. People seem to call tape dumps (.tap, .txz and so on) "Roms" as well, even though technically they are not. But no, the idea of program carts never quite caught on, did it? Is there anything that came out on cartridge that didn't also come out on tape?

There was only one game, Shadow of the Unicorn, which came on both tape and ROM cart, but that really didn't sell well as very few people owned the Interface II necessary to run it. Other than that, the limited ROM space (16KB) on the cart made a tape load more useful, despite the often >5min delay!

Then again, for the spectrum we have World Of Spectrum, where most anything that has ever run on any sort of speccy derivative is listed, and most of them are playable or downloadable straight off, and legally as far as I can gather. Those games whose IP owners don't want to distribute the old games are clearly marked and the game is not available. I don't know how that applies to redistribution, though.

WOS generally gains permission to distribute the games with the proviso that only WOS can distribute. E-bay auctions like the one mentioned above are certainly illegal.


D.

 

[gadgetoid]

When they pulled our Pandora auction I never even thought about the Pandora battery! I'd bet it was that and not emulation which triggered it.


'Piracy device'. Of course!


Everything is coming together in my head about their strange behavior now.

Someone (Darfgarf?) pointed this out at the time and it made sense to me too. Their automated system just picked up the words "Pandora battery" and pulled it.

Oh I can't resist but to chime in. It's amazing how far reaching the effects of Sony's futile war against "piracy" can be.


Dear Sony, I'm running homebrew on my "fat" PSP, on a reasonably recent firmware, with no need for hard modifications at all! You've failed. Get over it.


I'm so thankful that an open device like the Pandora is very close to making its way into my hands. With the oppression of these mainstream manufacturers reaching all new heights of absurdity we've got nowhere else to turn.


There's hope, though. I homebrewed on my Xbox 360... with Microsoft's own tools and support. That satiated my need to hack about and let me have a bit of fun with game programming. Microsoft seem to be making similar positive movements on the WP7 front. Let's hope they can make it not suck. And perhaps start a trend.

 

[WizardStan]

Do you mean winner-pays? We have a loser-pays system, don't we?

I'm pretty sure the US has a "pay for yourself" system. If someone sues you and you wish to defend yourself, you pay your lawyer costs entirely yourself and if you wish to see any of that money back you need to counter-sue for damages due to frivolous lawsuit. This is why the RIAA can randomly threaten people with lawsuits unless they pay several thousand dollars, because the several thousand is less than the cost of a lawyer. At least, I'm pretty sure that's how it is, I could be mistaken.


In a loser-pays system, you would still be out of pocket for the lawyer up front, but shortly after you've won you would get that money back from the person who tried to sue you.