eBay might not be so keen on working with the live sector to stop the use of the auction website by touts to resell gig tickets for significant profits, but they are keen to collaborate with the record industry to stop dodgy sellers from using the eBay platform to flog pirated CDs.
The web firm have launched a new campaign called 'Fighting Fakes With eBay', and hope to use it to promote their Verified Rights Owner (or VeRO) programme, which gives rights owners a platform through which to alert eBay bosses to any sales with infringe their copyrights.
On their mission to tackle the sale of bootlegged CDs and DVDs, Music Week quote eBay's European Senior VP Doug McCallum as follows: "Counterfeiters' sophistication keeps increasing, making it ever harder to differentiate a genuine item from a fake. We invest millions of dollars annually to prevent potential counterfeits from appearing and millions more removing from our sites the few that slip through. Clearly, as we do not have the expertise to assess the authenticity of every branded product, we are unable to tackle the problem alone".
He continues: "The fight against counterfeits requires a coordinated and global approach - with governments, rights owners, law enforcement and industry working together to combat the issue. We hope this latest anti-counterfeit initiative will raise awareness and put the VeRO programme and the support it offers, front of mind with rights owners".