The Pandora’s Box is Opened
A French court on Monday ordered online auctioneer eBay to pay nearly 40 million euros in damages to Louis Vuitton for selling fake luxury goods, in a ruling cheered as a victory for copyright protection.
The Paris commercial court ruled in favour of six LVMH brands and also barred eBay from selling four perfumes — Christian Dior, Kenzo, Givenchy and Guerlain — on its websites.
EBay countered that LVMH is trying to crack down on Internet auctions merely because it is uncomfortable with the business model, which tends to cut out the middleman.
“If counterfeits appear on our site, we take them down swiftly,” eBay spokeswoman Sravanthi Agrawal said. “But today’s ruling is not about counterfeits. Today’s ruling is about an attempt by LVMH to protect uncompetitive commercial practices at the expense of consumer choice and the livelihood of law-abiding sellers that eBay empowers every day.”
She said eBay hopes to appeal the ruling.
Personally, I believe this event will be a catalyst in redefining Intellectual Property (IP), which in its current state when applied to the “New Economy” is simply irrelevant. By going against one of the biggest online “retailers”, the fight will hopefully bring in big players like Google and other “IP violators” to form a consortium to push the fight all the way, and hopefully lead to an outcome that benefits the consumer.
I do not know what results might come out from this, but this post will be devoted to any future developments, because I believe this fight will leave an impact so deep, not just “industry changing” but “economy changing”. If you find any link to contribute, kindly feel free to update me in the comments section. Let’s keep out fingers crossed.
Neowster is short for Noel's & Esther's Own World. This is a personal hobbyist site, maintained mainly for the purpose of honing my knowledge in WordPress, and sharing useful information or knowledge to make someone's life easier. To a smaller extend, I hope to propagate the ideology of Crowdsourcing, as I see it as the best mechanism in regulating our unregulated capitalistic world, overcoming humanity's trait of greed, self interest, and fear, in arriving at the best decision. 
