Copyright Cops Further Out of Control

Security Alert: eBay Prevents Musician from Selling Own CD-Rs

“George Ziemann, an independent musician, made an album with his band and like many small operators, he then produced copies of the the album on CD-R and attempted to sell them on the Web. He listed copies on his own Web page, on MP3.COM, on garageband.com, and on eBay. All was going well… until eBay abruptly began to de-list the auctions.

Ziemann and his band were the authors, engineers, producers, and publishers of the album, and could prove that they owned the copyright and all other rights to it. Yet, eBay’s ‘droids’ unilaterally removed all of his auctions merely because the item descriptions stated that the recordings were on CD-R media. (This disclosure is important, because some players will not play CD-Rs.)… Despite his repeated attempts to contact eBay and inform them that his products were legal, Ziemann was unable to prevent them from removing his album each time he listed it for sale.

Ziemann speculates, in his detailed account of the incident, that the RIAA has put pressure upon eBay to block sales of all CD-Rs — not only to exclude illegal copies but to prevent independent musicians from self-publishing.”