So for the past several months, I have been reporting sales of counterfeit cards advertised as proxies. If you do a search for "mtg proxy" you will see on any given day anywhere from 50 to 250 posts selling counterfeit cards. There are black core proxies, white core proxies, blue core proxies, etc... all claiming they are almost identical to the actual card. The sellers often brag about how good their counterfeits are, that they pass the light test, bend test, rip test, and have the same dot patterns and misprints as originals. They then say don't use them for sanctioned tournaments or illegal activities. Some point out that the reason you shouldn't use them in sanctioned tournaments is because they are so real that nobody would be able to tell. You obviously don't need cards to pass all these tests to play casually. These cards are meant to be used in tournaments or resold to collectors/players that are unaware they are counterfeits.
I have been reporting all of these sales, and everyday more pop up. Sometimes the sellers have 0 feedback, and I get hopeful that their previous account was banned. But other times it is the same seller with hundreds or even thousands of feedbacks selling counterfeits again. I see the exact same photos of counterfeit cards over and over again. Sometimes I will get emails from EBAY letting me know that an auction for counterfeit cards that I had looked at a week ago was about to end and was I still interested? What is EBAY's responsibility in this matter? Are they allowed to facilitate these illegal sales? How many do they have to remove? How quickly? Do they have to ban accounts? Why are the same accounts posting over and over? Does WOTC care about this? Why haven't they gotten on EBAY's case about all these sales going on for months/years now? How easy is it to create a new account and start selling counterfeit cards again even if they do ban an account? Do they contact the appropriate authorities? I tried to contact EBAY, but found out in the attempt that EBAY does not have a way to contact by email, and googling how to contact EBAY seems to indicate that they try to make it as hard as possible for anyone to contact them with specific questions that don't fit a formula help menu system.
It just seems that if I can find hundreds of illegal sales just by doing a simple search for "mtg proxy" that EBAY should be able to find and remove these illegal sales on their own, and even with me helping them out they still are not stopping this problem. Any opinions on this?
This is a real problem and one that players using eBay should be more active about. The best way would be to get WotC's lawyers to contact eBay about these items and force their hand. So maybe it would be a good idea to also write to WotC customer service and point to these sellers.
I find it pretty unreasonable that eBay does not ban the sellers of fakes, but most likely there's few overworked people who don't know almost anything about collectible card games and IP rights and just keep giving a free pass. HOpefully more people will keep contacting them and flagging fake sales, so eventually somebody has to do something.
Meh, who cares. Why are you doing this work for WOTC for free. This is their problem. Moreover, why are you using a throwaway - or why did you create an account at MTGsalvation and your first post is about policing ebay for proxies.
That's a strangely hostile reaction, Quacker. Regardless of the nature of the accout, OP is right in saying eBay is noto stopping the sale of counterfeits effectively.
Ebay can't go through and do this themselves. That would make them responsible and liable for items sold on their website. They are just a marketplace for sellers and buyers to connect with each other. It is in their best interest to keep themselves from being liable for the items being sold there. If they did this for Magic cards, they'd have to do the same thing for anything that can be counterfeited. Magic cards aren't the only items with this kind of problem. There's an old joke - How do you know a Louis Vuitton bag is fake? Its for sale on Ebay.
Ebay doesn't have the manpower to check the millions of auctions that get posted on the site every day for violations. If that suddenly became their responsibility, the cost of selling would skyrocket and sellers would no longer afford to use the site. This is why they have to rely on other people reporting violations to them. The people selling these items know that this is the case and they know how to keep getting their items listed when they have been removed or accounts have been terminated.
This would be more of something for WotC to handle as opposed to Ebay.
I suspect eBay does not police their own postings, obviously, and so it would fall to WotC or other interested parties to flag the counterfeit posting, which is what the OP is suggesting. And, it's a fine idea. If you run across a counterfeit (copy or replica of an actual Magic card) report away.
You're an ebay worker and you have to check for fake neopet cards. Or fake beanie babies, or fake typewriters from the 1950s.
You cannot check the product in person. All you have to go on is pictures. How do you do it?
I know because you have been playing magic for a while, the proxies seem obvious to you. But move it out of your domain of comfort and its easy to see why this would be a problem.
Can you discern fake books? Fake fountain pens? fake silver?
Ebay doens't get involved. I think they should, but it easy to see why they don't.
This is a little bit different scenario. The posters are telling all of us that the cards are counterfeit. They say they are not real, that they are exact copies of the real cards. The pictures show the WOTC copyright symbols. The posters are not in any way trying to hide the fact that these cards are counterfeit. EBAY employees don't have to be card experts to tell these posts should be removed immediately. The sellers are telling them they are illegal posts. The reason I assume they are doing this is so that if they get into trouble, it is only a copyright violation instead of a fraud charge they are facing. Also, by being open about the cards being fake but calling them proxies, they hope they won't get reported.
If EBAY does not have the resources or does not want to spend the money to hire more people to remove these illegal sales in a timely matter, does that make it ok?
That's a strangely hostile reaction, Quacker. Regardless of the nature of the accout, OP is right in saying eBay is noto stopping the sale of counterfeits effectively.
Who goes out of their way to look for MTG proxies and then reports them to WOTC? I don't even see proxies when i do searches for cards. I think you have to specifically search for "proxy". I don't do it, I won't go out of my way to do it, and I certainly won't do it just to report to WOTC. Not after the recent PR fumbles.
That's a strangely hostile reaction, Quacker. Regardless of the nature of the accout, OP is right in saying eBay is noto stopping the sale of counterfeits effectively.
Who goes out of their way to look for MTG proxies and then reports them to WOTC? I don't even see proxies when i do searches for cards. I think you have to specifically search for "proxy". I don't do it, I won't go out of my way to do it, and I certainly won't do it just to report to WOTC. Not after the recent PR fumbles.
As a long time collector/casual player I do not like to see counterfeits. When I buy cards, I don't want to end up with counterfeits. Even if I recognize that they are fake, it will be a hassle to get reimbursed. Worse case scenario I don't recognize they were fakes until I find out years later when it is too late to get my money back. The more fakes EBAY allows to be sold on the market as proxies, the more fakes will eventually be sold as real to unsuspecting buyers. I also don't like people profiting by stealing the ideas, IP, art, copyrights, etc... that others created. So yes, I go out of my way to report these counterfeiters.
Who goes out of their way to look for MTG proxies and then reports them to WOTC? I don't even see proxies when i do searches for cards. I think you have to specifically search for "proxy". I don't do it, I won't go out of my way to do it, and I certainly won't do it just to report to WOTC. Not after the recent PR fumbles.
That's untrue; you're just not running searches on the cards being counterfeited. I see these auctions regularly without trying. I don't really understand how people enjoy Magic enough to be posting on a website like this yet care nothing whatsoever for its future livelihood. If proxies reign, cards devalue, and consumer confidence in the game dwindles. Product sales decline, and that eventually could lead to the game no longer being produced in paper. I get the animosity toward Wizards' recent missteps, but it has to be really hard to love the game while harboring disdain for the company that makes it.
Who goes out of their way to look for MTG proxies and then reports them to WOTC? I don't even see proxies when i do searches for cards. I think you have to specifically search for "proxy". I don't do it, I won't go out of my way to do it, and I certainly won't do it just to report to WOTC. Not after the recent PR fumbles.
That's untrue; you're just not running searches on the cards being counterfeited. I see these auctions regularly without trying. I don't really understand how people enjoy Magic enough to be posting on a website like this yet care nothing whatsoever for its future livelihood. If proxies reign, cards devalue, and consumer confidence in the game dwindles. Product sales decline, and that eventually could lead to the game no longer being produced in paper. I get the animosity toward Wizards' recent missteps, but it has to be really hard to love the game while harboring disdain for the company that makes it.
WotC doesn't care enough to abolish the reserve list and reprint the cards and stop the counterfeits so why should we? All the bragging they did with trying to stop the Asian counterfeiters has done nothing. All WotC is worried about now is selling packs, not the game as a whole.
I see and report counterfeit MTG card auctions on a regular basis. What else can I do? Ebay has a strict policy about not selling counterfeits and here we have people admitting to selling them on the auction page! Thereal issue here is that these auction exist every day because people are buying them. If nobody made a purchase they would stop.
WotC doesn't care enough to abolish the reserve list and reprint the cards and stop the counterfeits so why should we? All the bragging they did with trying to stop the Asian counterfeiters has done nothing. All WotC is worried about now is selling packs, not the game as a whole.
That's a ridiculous sentiment. The implication here is that they would not only have to abolish the RL, but also print any cards worthy of being counterfeited into oblivion, ruining consumer confidence in the game entirely and achieving the exact same end as allowing counterfeits to run rampant. The health of and player confidence in the game as a whole is critical to Wizards' ability to continue selling sealed product.
eBay use to be on top of this. Anytime I saw a listing for a proxy it was gone within a day, now they don't seem as active in policing these types of things. In basically all hobbies counterfeits are an issue to some degree and add in the fact that unauthorized merchandise is also becoming a huge issue you can see why people get away with this.
I own a photography business and sell my work via Etsy, in the community over there, there was a lot of discussion about Disney's crack down on unauthorized merchandise, specifically "Frozen" merch. A lot of shops were closed and/or had listings removed. But at the end of the day, you can still go on there and find "Frozen" items.
Etsy even has it's own issue with people selling proxies and I think once you start adding in other hobbies and trademarked items you can get a better sense of why eBay and Etsy seem to not care about these sellers.
UrWeak said it bit clearer than I did. Currently copyright infringements are seen as harmless on certain items, when few years back it wasn't. The best way to get eBays attention is either to keep actively reporting these by an army of players, and I mean tens of reports per item, or to get WotC to officially contact them and thus force eBay to run a cleaning up operation, where all items using certain words will automatically get flagged and removed. (And the sellers will strat using different names/words in their descriptions, and the circle will start again).
Few years back WotC did this to the alterer community and got all altered card auctions cleared for a while from eBay. Now new alterers don't even know this has happened and could happen again anytime. But I for one would welcome the closure of some sellers of fakes and if WotC decided to take it to court and prosecute few people, it would really slow down the market. Unfortunately it seems that they have decided against it, as the publicity would be pretty bad (evil corporation against poor misunderstood teens), and the sellers mostly poor enough so getting any money out of the deal seems unlikely. But that woulöd send a clear message out there and hopefully shake the smaller sellers enough that the chinese guys would not sell their fakes so easily, effectively closing them down much easier than the previous try did. (I can hope.)
Who goes out of their way to look for MTG proxies and then reports them to WOTC? I don't even see proxies when i do searches for cards. I think you have to specifically search for "proxy". I don't do it, I won't go out of my way to do it, and I certainly won't do it just to report to WOTC. Not after the recent PR fumbles.
That's untrue; you're just not running searches on the cards being counterfeited. I see these auctions regularly without trying. I don't really understand how people enjoy Magic enough to be posting on a website like this yet care nothing whatsoever for its future livelihood. If proxies reign, cards devalue, and consumer confidence in the game dwindles. Product sales decline, and that eventually could lead to the game no longer being produced in paper. I get the animosity toward Wizards' recent missteps, but it has to be really hard to love the game while harboring disdain for the company that makes it.
It is not untrue, I search for cards all the time on eBay and I never see the proxy listings.
In any case, I don't care anymore if WOTC goes out of business. See, it used to be a partnership - WOTC used to need it's players and judges and treated them as partners. Now they're dictating to us from their corporate mouthpieces and **** that noise, jack. They've lost me. If the game declines, it's WOTC's fault for driving away everyone. I will only play the game. I understand going to FNM and the like is still supporting WOTC, but I won't go out of my way to bring new players into the game like I used to or flag auctions on eBay for them. WOTC can rot, and if that even causes my own collection to lose value, I don't care. I've downsized significantly anyways.
eBay use to be on top of this. Anytime I saw a listing for a proxy it was gone within a day, now they don't seem as active in policing these types of things.
Ebay never did anything like this on their own. They have always relied on people reporting policy violations to them. The moment that they start to take action on their own, they become liable (even if only for a small part) for anything that they don't catch. The only reason Ebay is able to run their website is because they have no liability for the items being sold on the site.
Yeah, guys, I think there's a few concepts being mixed up here:
(1) Should eBay be held responsible for policing counterfeit magic cards? (Not proxies. The listings in question are neither proxies nor play-test cards. They are copies or reproductions of actual magic cards, hence, "counterfeits.")
(2) Should you report counterfeiters when you find them on eBay?
I think everyone here agrees that the answer to (1) is "No," since it's impossible to expect eBay to do that. Everyone seems to agree that the answer to (2) is "Yes..."
...except for Quacker, who apparently is angry enough with WotC's recent stumbles with judge suspensions and play-test tournament messaging that he thinks they deserve to be wrecked by counterfeits. Oh, and Jaythohen, who is so angry about the reserve list that he thinks WotC deserves the same.
These are kind of extreme opinions, dear reader, and I urge you to report all counterfeiters you see on eBay. Whether you like WotC or not, when money goes to counterfeiters, we all lose in the long run.
Meh, who cares. Why are you doing this work for WOTC for free. This is their problem. Moreover, why are you using a throwaway - or why did you create an account at MTGsalvation and your first post is about policing ebay for proxies.
You work for WOTC?
DO you want to keep on enjoying this past time? Believe you me there is nothing that has the potential to kill this game as quickly and as effectively as the widespread consumption of counterfeit mtg cards. It is in all of the players best interest to do something about this.
(1) Should eBay be held responsible for policing counterfeit magic cards? (Not proxies. The listings in question are neither proxies nor play-test cards. They are copies or reproductions of actual magic cards, hence, "counterfeits.")
You do realise that if a listing gets sold on ebay, ebay takes it's cut. Ebay will profit along with the counterfeiters that sell on ebay. They have it in them to enable counterfeiting on a grand scale. They have to take action.
I view this and I think the courts would do the same as what was the case with Napster in the late 90's. Napster never downloader or shared any music but it enabled its users to copy music. The courts ruled all those years ago that you cannot enable IP theft on such a huge scale and just turn ablind eye towards the law breaking you have enabled.
This to me is the same and in some cases even worst as Ebay is actually profiteering from all this. It is not a free service like many piracy enablers once where.
I really hope WOTC really does get the lawyer hammer out and does something. Nothing like a multi million dollar lawsuit to show people what you mean.
Ebay is more like the classified ads in a newspaper than it's like Napster.
Also, Ebay has been through this kind of thing before and came out on top. From Wikipedia:
In court papers introduced by attorney for jeweler Tiffany & Co., it was claimed that researchers for Tiffany had determined that over 70% of the Tiffany silver jewelry offered for sale on eBay was fake.[11] Tiffany & Co. filed a lawsuit against eBay in 2004 which claimed that eBay profited from the sales of counterfeit Tiffany items that infringed on its trademark. On July 14, 2008, a Federal District Court judge ruled that eBay does not have a legal responsibility to monitor users selling counterfeit items.[12] In 2010, the Second Circuit affirmed this decision (see Tiffany v. eBay).
I don't want fakes on ebay because at some point somebody WILL try to pass them off as the real thing, whether they mean to or not, and i don't want to be on the receiving end. Less of the super realistic fakes in circulation is a good thing for everyone.
Ebay is more like the classified ads in a newspaper than it's like Napster.
Also, Ebay has been through this kind of thing before and came out on top. From Wikipedia:
In court papers introduced by attorney for jeweler Tiffany & Co., it was claimed that researchers for Tiffany had determined that over 70% of the Tiffany silver jewelry offered for sale on eBay was fake.[11] Tiffany & Co. filed a lawsuit against eBay in 2004 which claimed that eBay profited from the sales of counterfeit Tiffany items that infringed on its trademark. On July 14, 2008, a Federal District Court judge ruled that eBay does not have a legal responsibility to monitor users selling counterfeit items.[12] In 2010, the Second Circuit affirmed this decision (see Tiffany v. eBay).
I don't know the details of the above case, but I assume it is for people selling fake Tiffany items as real Tiffany items. I can understand how EBAY bears less responsibility when they don't know an item being sold is fake. How can they be expected to remove a post that nobody knows is for fake goods until the buyer receives it and makes EBAY aware. But we are talking about items EBAY knows are illegal as soon as the item is listed. Why bother having listing rules and a report procedure at all if EBAY has no responsibility at all in these matters? I am upset that EBAY does not remove the posts (at all or in a timely matter) after being flagged when the seller himself also acknowledges that he is selling counterfeit cards. I also don't like the fact that these accounts are not banned. I should never see the same account listing a bunch of auctions for counterfeit cards after I have been reporting the same user multiple times for doing the same thing over the last several months.
Would things be different if these sellers used the word "counterfeit" instead of "proxy" in their posts? Is all that needs to be done in order to violate copyright rules is to use a better sounding word?
If EBAY is legally obligated to remove these posts, how timely do they need to be? If a listing lasts a week, and they take 10 days before getting around to looking at it, that doesn't do a lot of good.
Who goes out of their way to look for MTG proxies and then reports them to WOTC? I don't even see proxies when i do searches for cards. I think you have to specifically search for "proxy". I don't do it, I won't go out of my way to do it, and I certainly won't do it just to report to WOTC. Not after the recent PR fumbles.
That's untrue; you're just not running searches on the cards being counterfeited. I see these auctions regularly without trying. I don't really understand how people enjoy Magic enough to be posting on a website like this yet care nothing whatsoever for its future livelihood. If proxies reign, cards devalue, and consumer confidence in the game dwindles. Product sales decline, and that eventually could lead to the game no longer being produced in paper. I get the animosity toward Wizards' recent missteps, but it has to be really hard to love the game while harboring disdain for the company that makes it.
WotC doesn't care enough to abolish the reserve list and reprint the cards and stop the counterfeits so why should we? All the bragging they did with trying to stop the Asian counterfeiters has done nothing. All WotC is worried about now is selling packs, not the game as a whole.
This is simply not true. Let's suppose WotC abolished the reserve list and reprinted cards, you're saying that that would stop the counterfeiters?
Ok well what do you want to call the abolition of the reserve list? Can we call it modern?
Can we also call the reprintings Modern Masters/ Commander/ Judge FOILS/ FTV/ Core Sets?
People will blame the reserve list for anything I swear.
But here. Finally here and now
we have actual EVIDENCE where if you don't have a reserve list, and if you reprint cards, counterfeits will still continue. We have counterfeits of a number of modern staples which are not protected by the reserve list.
The reserve list has absolutely nothing to do with this issue, and oddly enough in many ways, at this point prevents the effect of counterfeiting.
What do I mean? The reserve list is responsible for the high dollar price of vintage magic.
That means that only collectors will go out of their way to to buy vintage.
Go into your local game shop and try to explain to them all the finers of magic forgery and counterfeiting. People don't care! It's tough to learn, its hard to learn. People have to pixel peep, memorize, scrutinize. Why would they want to learn these things for low value cards. The answer is they don't.
But for a $5000 NM unlimited Lotus, they will learn, they have incentive to learn.
A Chinese counterfeiting can really screw up the profit model of Magic. If the counterfeits are good enough, people won't be able to distinguish the card at a first glance. That will be a huge problem for wizards.
But will it be a huge problem for Vintage? Vintage is filled with extremely experienced people and counterfeits. The incentive to learn is driven by the high prices. No one can afford to pay 5k for a lotus and receive a fake in the mail.
Vintage/collectors are in fact the only segment of the magic population that knows how to check for fakes, even very good fakes.
We scan at 600+ dpi. We examine the Rosette pattern to death. We can tell if something is even a little bit off--the coloring, the shape, the tracklines on early vintage prints, even the precise mass.
A chinese counterfeiter will have great difficulty passing a fake piece of power 9. We have seen counterfeits for YEARS.
What's more even if a chinese counterfeiter manages to pass one through, the Vintage market is too small. There simply arent that many people out there able to pay 5000 for a lotus.
In one of the oddest twists of fate, the reserve list at this point, creating sky high vintage prices, probably prevents a great deal of counterfeiting.
Or better it might be to say, it blunts the effectiveness of mtg counterfeiting,
...by creating a ridiculously low volume market.
...by creating a class of mtg players able to detect counterfeits to a very high degree of detail
...by creating market conditions where it is simply unprofitable for counterfeiters to attempt to pass off fake cards.
Ebay is more like the classified ads in a newspaper than it's like Napster.
Also, Ebay has been through this kind of thing before and came out on top. From Wikipedia:
In court papers introduced by attorney for jeweler Tiffany & Co., it was claimed that researchers for Tiffany had determined that over 70% of the Tiffany silver jewelry offered for sale on eBay was fake.[11] Tiffany & Co. filed a lawsuit against eBay in 2004 which claimed that eBay profited from the sales of counterfeit Tiffany items that infringed on its trademark. On July 14, 2008, a Federal District Court judge ruled that eBay does not have a legal responsibility to monitor users selling counterfeit items.[12] In 2010, the Second Circuit affirmed this decision (see Tiffany v. eBay).
I don't know the details of the above case, but I assume it is for people selling fake Tiffany items as real Tiffany items. I can understand how EBAY bears less responsibility when they don't know an item being sold is fake. How can they be expected to remove a post that nobody knows is for fake goods until the buyer receives it and makes EBAY aware. But we are talking about items EBAY knows are illegal as soon as the item is listed. Why bother having listing rules and a report procedure at all if EBAY has no responsibility at all in these matters? I am upset that EBAY does not remove the posts (at all or in a timely matter) after being flagged when the seller himself also acknowledges that he is selling counterfeit cards. I also don't like the fact that these accounts are not banned. I should never see the same account listing a bunch of auctions for counterfeit cards after I have been reporting the same user multiple times for doing the same thing over the last several months.
Would things be different if these sellers used the word "counterfeit" instead of "proxy" in their posts? Is all that needs to be done in order to violate copyright rules is to use a better sounding word?
If EBAY is legally obligated to remove these posts, how timely do they need to be? If a listing lasts a week, and they take 10 days before getting around to looking at it, that doesn't do a lot of good.
Ebay doesn't know that the items being listed are fake. Ebay doesn't review the content of the auctions being posted. They have literally millions of new auctions posted on the site every day. It is impossible for them to review every single auction. That's another reason why they have to rely on people reporting things to them.
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I have been reporting all of these sales, and everyday more pop up. Sometimes the sellers have 0 feedback, and I get hopeful that their previous account was banned. But other times it is the same seller with hundreds or even thousands of feedbacks selling counterfeits again. I see the exact same photos of counterfeit cards over and over again. Sometimes I will get emails from EBAY letting me know that an auction for counterfeit cards that I had looked at a week ago was about to end and was I still interested? What is EBAY's responsibility in this matter? Are they allowed to facilitate these illegal sales? How many do they have to remove? How quickly? Do they have to ban accounts? Why are the same accounts posting over and over? Does WOTC care about this? Why haven't they gotten on EBAY's case about all these sales going on for months/years now? How easy is it to create a new account and start selling counterfeit cards again even if they do ban an account? Do they contact the appropriate authorities? I tried to contact EBAY, but found out in the attempt that EBAY does not have a way to contact by email, and googling how to contact EBAY seems to indicate that they try to make it as hard as possible for anyone to contact them with specific questions that don't fit a formula help menu system.
It just seems that if I can find hundreds of illegal sales just by doing a simple search for "mtg proxy" that EBAY should be able to find and remove these illegal sales on their own, and even with me helping them out they still are not stopping this problem. Any opinions on this?
I find it pretty unreasonable that eBay does not ban the sellers of fakes, but most likely there's few overworked people who don't know almost anything about collectible card games and IP rights and just keep giving a free pass. HOpefully more people will keep contacting them and flagging fake sales, so eventually somebody has to do something.
Set to default
You work for WOTC?
Ebay doesn't have the manpower to check the millions of auctions that get posted on the site every day for violations. If that suddenly became their responsibility, the cost of selling would skyrocket and sellers would no longer afford to use the site. This is why they have to rely on other people reporting violations to them. The people selling these items know that this is the case and they know how to keep getting their items listed when they have been removed or accounts have been terminated.
This would be more of something for WotC to handle as opposed to Ebay.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/replica-counterfeit.html
I suspect eBay does not police their own postings, obviously, and so it would fall to WotC or other interested parties to flag the counterfeit posting, which is what the OP is suggesting. And, it's a fine idea. If you run across a counterfeit (copy or replica of an actual Magic card) report away.
You're an ebay worker and you have to check for fake neopet cards. Or fake beanie babies, or fake typewriters from the 1950s.
You cannot check the product in person. All you have to go on is pictures. How do you do it?
I know because you have been playing magic for a while, the proxies seem obvious to you. But move it out of your domain of comfort and its easy to see why this would be a problem.
Can you discern fake books? Fake fountain pens? fake silver?
Ebay doens't get involved. I think they should, but it easy to see why they don't.
If EBAY does not have the resources or does not want to spend the money to hire more people to remove these illegal sales in a timely matter, does that make it ok?
Who goes out of their way to look for MTG proxies and then reports them to WOTC? I don't even see proxies when i do searches for cards. I think you have to specifically search for "proxy". I don't do it, I won't go out of my way to do it, and I certainly won't do it just to report to WOTC. Not after the recent PR fumbles.
As a long time collector/casual player I do not like to see counterfeits. When I buy cards, I don't want to end up with counterfeits. Even if I recognize that they are fake, it will be a hassle to get reimbursed. Worse case scenario I don't recognize they were fakes until I find out years later when it is too late to get my money back. The more fakes EBAY allows to be sold on the market as proxies, the more fakes will eventually be sold as real to unsuspecting buyers. I also don't like people profiting by stealing the ideas, IP, art, copyrights, etc... that others created. So yes, I go out of my way to report these counterfeiters.
That's untrue; you're just not running searches on the cards being counterfeited. I see these auctions regularly without trying. I don't really understand how people enjoy Magic enough to be posting on a website like this yet care nothing whatsoever for its future livelihood. If proxies reign, cards devalue, and consumer confidence in the game dwindles. Product sales decline, and that eventually could lead to the game no longer being produced in paper. I get the animosity toward Wizards' recent missteps, but it has to be really hard to love the game while harboring disdain for the company that makes it.
Legacy: D+T
Oldschool: BW Deadguy BW
Magic player/collector since 1994
Proud supporter of #MtgForLife!
WotC doesn't care enough to abolish the reserve list and reprint the cards and stop the counterfeits so why should we? All the bragging they did with trying to stop the Asian counterfeiters has done nothing. All WotC is worried about now is selling packs, not the game as a whole.
BUG Reanimator
BWG Nic-Fit
BGR Punishing Nic-Fit
That's a ridiculous sentiment. The implication here is that they would not only have to abolish the RL, but also print any cards worthy of being counterfeited into oblivion, ruining consumer confidence in the game entirely and achieving the exact same end as allowing counterfeits to run rampant. The health of and player confidence in the game as a whole is critical to Wizards' ability to continue selling sealed product.
Legacy: D+T
Oldschool: BW Deadguy BW
Magic player/collector since 1994
Proud supporter of #MtgForLife!
I own a photography business and sell my work via Etsy, in the community over there, there was a lot of discussion about Disney's crack down on unauthorized merchandise, specifically "Frozen" merch. A lot of shops were closed and/or had listings removed. But at the end of the day, you can still go on there and find "Frozen" items.
Etsy even has it's own issue with people selling proxies and I think once you start adding in other hobbies and trademarked items you can get a better sense of why eBay and Etsy seem to not care about these sellers.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
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B MBMC B
Few years back WotC did this to the alterer community and got all altered card auctions cleared for a while from eBay. Now new alterers don't even know this has happened and could happen again anytime. But I for one would welcome the closure of some sellers of fakes and if WotC decided to take it to court and prosecute few people, it would really slow down the market. Unfortunately it seems that they have decided against it, as the publicity would be pretty bad (evil corporation against poor misunderstood teens), and the sellers mostly poor enough so getting any money out of the deal seems unlikely. But that woulöd send a clear message out there and hopefully shake the smaller sellers enough that the chinese guys would not sell their fakes so easily, effectively closing them down much easier than the previous try did. (I can hope.)
Set to default
It is not untrue, I search for cards all the time on eBay and I never see the proxy listings.
In any case, I don't care anymore if WOTC goes out of business. See, it used to be a partnership - WOTC used to need it's players and judges and treated them as partners. Now they're dictating to us from their corporate mouthpieces and **** that noise, jack. They've lost me. If the game declines, it's WOTC's fault for driving away everyone. I will only play the game. I understand going to FNM and the like is still supporting WOTC, but I won't go out of my way to bring new players into the game like I used to or flag auctions on eBay for them. WOTC can rot, and if that even causes my own collection to lose value, I don't care. I've downsized significantly anyways.
Ebay never did anything like this on their own. They have always relied on people reporting policy violations to them. The moment that they start to take action on their own, they become liable (even if only for a small part) for anything that they don't catch. The only reason Ebay is able to run their website is because they have no liability for the items being sold on the site.
(1) Should eBay be held responsible for policing counterfeit magic cards? (Not proxies. The listings in question are neither proxies nor play-test cards. They are copies or reproductions of actual magic cards, hence, "counterfeits.")
(2) Should you report counterfeiters when you find them on eBay?
I think everyone here agrees that the answer to (1) is "No," since it's impossible to expect eBay to do that. Everyone seems to agree that the answer to (2) is "Yes..."
...except for Quacker, who apparently is angry enough with WotC's recent stumbles with judge suspensions and play-test tournament messaging that he thinks they deserve to be wrecked by counterfeits. Oh, and Jaythohen, who is so angry about the reserve list that he thinks WotC deserves the same.
These are kind of extreme opinions, dear reader, and I urge you to report all counterfeiters you see on eBay. Whether you like WotC or not, when money goes to counterfeiters, we all lose in the long run.
DO you want to keep on enjoying this past time? Believe you me there is nothing that has the potential to kill this game as quickly and as effectively as the widespread consumption of counterfeit mtg cards. It is in all of the players best interest to do something about this.
You do realise that if a listing gets sold on ebay, ebay takes it's cut. Ebay will profit along with the counterfeiters that sell on ebay. They have it in them to enable counterfeiting on a grand scale. They have to take action.
I view this and I think the courts would do the same as what was the case with Napster in the late 90's. Napster never downloader or shared any music but it enabled its users to copy music. The courts ruled all those years ago that you cannot enable IP theft on such a huge scale and just turn ablind eye towards the law breaking you have enabled.
This to me is the same and in some cases even worst as Ebay is actually profiteering from all this. It is not a free service like many piracy enablers once where.
I really hope WOTC really does get the lawyer hammer out and does something. Nothing like a multi million dollar lawsuit to show people what you mean.
Also, Ebay has been through this kind of thing before and came out on top. From Wikipedia:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.
I don't know the details of the above case, but I assume it is for people selling fake Tiffany items as real Tiffany items. I can understand how EBAY bears less responsibility when they don't know an item being sold is fake. How can they be expected to remove a post that nobody knows is for fake goods until the buyer receives it and makes EBAY aware. But we are talking about items EBAY knows are illegal as soon as the item is listed. Why bother having listing rules and a report procedure at all if EBAY has no responsibility at all in these matters? I am upset that EBAY does not remove the posts (at all or in a timely matter) after being flagged when the seller himself also acknowledges that he is selling counterfeit cards. I also don't like the fact that these accounts are not banned. I should never see the same account listing a bunch of auctions for counterfeit cards after I have been reporting the same user multiple times for doing the same thing over the last several months.
Would things be different if these sellers used the word "counterfeit" instead of "proxy" in their posts? Is all that needs to be done in order to violate copyright rules is to use a better sounding word?
If EBAY is legally obligated to remove these posts, how timely do they need to be? If a listing lasts a week, and they take 10 days before getting around to looking at it, that doesn't do a lot of good.
This is simply not true. Let's suppose WotC abolished the reserve list and reprinted cards, you're saying that that would stop the counterfeiters?
Ok well what do you want to call the abolition of the reserve list? Can we call it modern?
Can we also call the reprintings Modern Masters/ Commander/ Judge FOILS/ FTV/ Core Sets?
People will blame the reserve list for anything I swear.
But here. Finally here and now
we have actual EVIDENCE where if you don't have a reserve list, and if you reprint cards, counterfeits will still continue. We have counterfeits of a number of modern staples which are not protected by the reserve list.
The reserve list has absolutely nothing to do with this issue, and oddly enough in many ways, at this point prevents the effect of counterfeiting.
What do I mean? The reserve list is responsible for the high dollar price of vintage magic.
That means that only collectors will go out of their way to to buy vintage.
Go into your local game shop and try to explain to them all the finers of magic forgery and counterfeiting. People don't care! It's tough to learn, its hard to learn. People have to pixel peep, memorize, scrutinize. Why would they want to learn these things for low value cards. The answer is they don't.
But for a $5000 NM unlimited Lotus, they will learn, they have incentive to learn.
A Chinese counterfeiting can really screw up the profit model of Magic. If the counterfeits are good enough, people won't be able to distinguish the card at a first glance. That will be a huge problem for wizards.
But will it be a huge problem for Vintage? Vintage is filled with extremely experienced people and counterfeits. The incentive to learn is driven by the high prices. No one can afford to pay 5k for a lotus and receive a fake in the mail.
Vintage/collectors are in fact the only segment of the magic population that knows how to check for fakes, even very good fakes.
We scan at 600+ dpi. We examine the Rosette pattern to death. We can tell if something is even a little bit off--the coloring, the shape, the tracklines on early vintage prints, even the precise mass.
A chinese counterfeiter will have great difficulty passing a fake piece of power 9. We have seen counterfeits for YEARS.
What's more even if a chinese counterfeiter manages to pass one through, the Vintage market is too small. There simply arent that many people out there able to pay 5000 for a lotus.
In one of the oddest twists of fate, the reserve list at this point, creating sky high vintage prices, probably prevents a great deal of counterfeiting.
Or better it might be to say, it blunts the effectiveness of mtg counterfeiting,
...by creating a ridiculously low volume market.
...by creating a class of mtg players able to detect counterfeits to a very high degree of detail
...by creating market conditions where it is simply unprofitable for counterfeiters to attempt to pass off fake cards.
Ebay doesn't know that the items being listed are fake. Ebay doesn't review the content of the auctions being posted. They have literally millions of new auctions posted on the site every day. It is impossible for them to review every single auction. That's another reason why they have to rely on people reporting things to them.