Media Portal On Ebay (2 Viewers)

[deadmonty]

On sale here:

Media Portal DVD Multimedia Player Software for Windows on eBay (end time 25-Nov-09 20:08:19 GMT)

I queried the seller as follows:

Why are you selling something which is freely available for download on the internet?

Why have you listed it as copyrighted?


This is his answer:

Thank you for your interest. We have permission to sell a CD version of the software from the developers. The CD is copyrighted as it contains our protected IP. The actual software is covered by a separate license but the rest of the CD is our copyrighted material.

If you have anymore questions about this item and its legitimacy please let me know and I will do my best to answer them for you.

Best wishes

- mtsoftwaresolutions

?????

Paul

 

[spiderwheels]

Much like selling a linux distribution I suppose.

But unlike a linux distribution its not immediately obvious what value has been added here. I wonder what the propriety IP does?

 

[The_Stig]

They don't have "a permission" of the developers (at least not that I know)! Nothing we can do I guess.

 

[piranha]

Hahaha... Since when they can copyright a CD?
And saying it's "copyrighted" is something different than actually claiming a copyright of it.
You can always report the auction as license breach.

 

[zicoz]

E-Bay should implement some sort of a way to make people mark auctions like this with a "This software can be downloaded for free" banner at the top. And if they don't have the banner and they get reported they would be banned.

 

[kiwijunglist]

Click on the report button, i couldn't find a good category to report him under however

Please note that this is a system generated email; please do not reply to this email because it won't reach us. You can contact the Customer support using the help section from the navbar.



Listing Policy Breaches > Counterfeits and breach of copyright > Potential trademark infringement > Other replica or counterfeit items

Item Numbers(s):
120441838877

Message: Seller is selling open source freely available software and claiming that he owns copyright.

 

[R300]

They could have at least used blue3 screenshots instead of blue2......

Talk about false advertising!!

 

[bazzz]

It might be an idea to have a message telling people that MP is free software during installation (if there isn't already). So at least they can try and claim a refund afterwards.

 

[zicoz]

There is a note after you're done with the installation that mentions it.

 

[simon169]

I have looked at these a few times and thought about listing my own sale in the same catergory stating that they can download the software for free with a link. If they require a copy on cd/dvd they can buy it for 99p or something and I will send them a copy on disk as a service. So they would not be buying the software just the service of me downloading/burning and posting to them. Maybe if a few of us started doing this it may stop them. If you do not sell and item on ebay it does not cost you anything. The only way thy could fight back is by buying the item and then not paying but this would lead to there account being suspended hopefully.

There are also several other bits of software being sold in the same way like the flight sim flightgear and office suite open office.