WHO THIS GUIDE IS FOR: People who sell ebooks and other digital, copyrighted (or copyrightable) materials.

BACKGROUND: If you’ve been selling on eBay for any significant time, there is a good chance you’ve had some experience with the VeRO program. If you’ve run into problems with VeRO, either by having your listings wrongfully removed or by finding a listing you believe is violating your intellectual property rights, this guide can help. The Verified Rights Owner Program, commonly referred to as VeRO, is an eBay policy covering intellectual property rights, its owners, and eBay listers. (see: http://pages..com/help/tp/programs-vero-ov.html) Basically, VeRO is designed to protect the owner of intellectual property rights from infringing parties; i.e. anyone who does not have the right to use the intellectual property.

Though this guide is written primarily for sellers of e-books, web-designs, digital images, or other copyrighted media, it can be used by anyone who runs into problems with the VeRO program and

VeRO: To understand how to use the VeRO policy to your advantage and how to protect yourself from those who would abuse it, you have to know how it works. We’ll look at the program from 2 perspectives; that of a rights owner who believes someone is selling their property or violating their intellectual property rights, and that of a rights owner who has had a VeRO claim filed against them.

PART 1
YOU BELIEVE SOMEONE IS VIOLATING YOUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

Let抯 say you have written an original e-book about quilting. You wrote your own guide, took your own photos, made your own diagrams and put them all together into as an e-book you sell on eBay. After about a month, you notice that someone else is selling a new quilting e-book. They are new to eBay and their user name is identical to someone that bought your guide last week. You purchase a copy of their guide and, lo and behold, find out this person is selling YOUR book. They didn抰 even bother changing the by-line!

Now, you are very angry and want to do something, but what? We抣l get to that but let抯 take a look at what you can do before this happens to ensure you have the best chance of protecting your rights.

What to do BEFORE it happens:

1. Disclaimers: Comply with all eBay VeRO policies by ensuring your product is yours and no one else抯. If you created your product, you own it, including any and all intellectual property rights that apply. In the example above, the person who creates the guide owns it and all copyrights to it. State this in your listing and on the guide itself.

2. Resale Rights: If you own intellectual property, you have the right to sell copies of it. You also have the right to sell re-sale rights. If you DON扵 want to sell resale rights, state this. If you are selling an e-book and do not want to sell resale rights, state it in your e-book and in the listing as well.

My eBay: If you don抰 already have one, set up a 慚y eBay?page. It doesn抰 have to be anything fancy, but if you are selling e-books or similar items that area subject to VeRO claims, you should set one up. State on your page what kind of items you sell, what rights you retain in your items, and that you comply with all eBay policies including VeRO.

What to do AFTER it happens:

Make Contact: Contact the person you believe is violating your rights and tell them you are the rights holder to the item and want them to remove their listing and stop selling your items. Keep a copy of this message in wither you eBay message folder or a folder in you regular e-mail.

File a Claim: If the person does not respond to your demand, you can take the next step and file a VeRO claim against them. In order to do this, you must fill our and sign a Notice of Claimed Infringement (NOCI) and send it to eBay. (http://cgi3..com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?CreateProductGuide&ssPageName=RevGui:UsrSum:1) Because the claim must be signed under penalty of perjury, you must make sure you read the NOCI thoroughly and be sure that the statements made on the form are true.

Once your claim is filed, eBay will automatically remove the items you listed as infringing. It will then be up to the filing eBay member to decide if they want to take further action on the issue.

PART 2
YOU ARE A RIGHTS OWNER WHO HAS HAD A WRONGFUL CLAIM FILED AGAINST THEM

Let抯 take the example we used above. You have written your original guide about quilting and have been selling it for some time. One day you get a message from eBay informing you that they have removed all your quilting book listings because someone filed a VeRO claim against them. You are apoplectic with rage, of course, because you have done nothing wrong. (Yes, I know. It has happened to me too.) Take a step back, do what you need to do to calm down, and read on.

What to do BEFORE it happens:

(Same as above. Make sure you state you are the owner (or at least have resale rights) of the item in all your listings and on your eBay About Me page.

What to do AFTER it happens:

1. Contact the VeRO claimant. When eBay notifies you a VeRO claim, it provides you contact information (an e-mail address) through which you can contact the person filing the claim. This will only be an e-mail address, but at least it抯 something. Contact the VeRO claimant and notify them you are the rights owner to the item in question. Ask them why they filed the claim, and what they believe you did to infringe. If they respond, make sure they understand that your book is an original creation, and that they have no right to file a claim as they are not the rights owner. Remind them that they had to sign an NOCI to get your item removed, and since they claimed something that is untrue, they can be held liable for perjury.

2. If they don抰 respond: Inform eBay that you have contacted the VeRO claimant but they have not responded. eBay gives the VeRO claimant 5 business days to respond. After that, you can contact eBay and inform them the claimant has not responded.

3. Following up with eBay: Once you have notified eBay of the claimant抯 failure to respond to you, they will contact the claimant themselves and urge them to contact you. They will tell you they did this. If the claimant has not responded in 5 business days (yes, that抯 another 5 days), you can then request that eBay send you a form to fill out so you can re-list your items. After you fill out this form and send it to eBay, they will contact you and tell you they received it. They will then inform you that the item will be re-listed automatically within a certain time, or that you can re-list the item yourself.

If this doesn抰 sound appealing to you, you are not alone. The eBay VeRO program is mainly designed to protect eBay from people who want to sue them for allowing eBay members to infringe on intellectual property. As long as eBay complies with the VeRO policy, they are in effect shielded from people suing them. Unfortunately for you and me, when someone files a wrongful VeRO claim against us, there isn抰 a lot we can do.

This guide is just an overview. If you want more information, we are currently developing a new e-book for people who have experienced this situation and want to know what they can do. It should be available soon.

Good luck, and good eBaying!