I'm a minor and I sell on Ebay, can I go to court? Law firm wants me to pay $900.

Don't tell your parents or waste money on a lawyer.

 

First of all, nobody has mentioned one important thing.

If this email was legit, and in the US, it would involve law
enforcement agencies. A letter would not be any good.

The feds would have been knocking on your door if you
were really guilty of selling stuff like that.

But the #2 kicker is that you were selling them on ebay.
Ebay would have sent you a big fat email first and banned
you. Did that happen? If not, blow them off.

You are a minor but can be charged with crimes. Happens
all the time. They can sue you as well, but they are accusing
you of a crime.

Counterfeiting is a huge crime and gets the feds attention.

If neither the feds nor ebay have contacted you, blow them
off. They are a scam. Or, tell them to go through legal channels.

The legal system protects you as well. They can't just take
money from you and accuse you of a crime. That's why the whole
thing is bogus and sounds like extortion.

Dang it. Looks like this was an old thread that got dug up yesterday.
Hate that when that happens!

Stephen C

 

You obviously know nothing about how a lawsuit works. The notice was related to a threatened civil action, not to a criminal charge. Product Partners is actively pursuing civil litigation against anybody they catch violating their intellectual property rights (http://www.cyberlawfacts.com/2009/11/product-partners-p90x-lawsuits.html).

If you really think that being banned from eBay is a prerequisite to being sued, kindly stop posting in the legal forum.

I agree with you on one thing, though: It's an old thread. I hope the OP has contacted a lawyer by now and dealt with this. If so, I would like to know what the final result was.

 

Well actually they wouldn't ask you to pay $900, they would directly sue you about pirated dvds... which means they are phishing

 

Of course being banned from ebay is no prerequisite for suing. And just because you have the handle
Law Dude, is no reason people should believe you either. So please, kindly stop offering unpaid legal
advice just like you suggest I do. I'm not offering legal advice. I'm offering logic. Something that
always seems to get lost in these matters. That and reality.

Being banned from ebay would be a tipoff that one was doing something that just might be illegal.
That's all that statement was for. There is no way anyone selling pirated stuff on ebay would not
get a quick boot if they were informed. And the real company would indeed make a stink to ebay.

And this thing was on pirated goods. If you really were really in the know on legal matters, then you
would know that the FBI is highly involved in these matters. There is just no way any company
who claims its products were pirated would not contact the FBI first. Then they would sue you.
They would not send some lame letter. They would need to put a stop to the whole thing. Not
just one little ol' seller.

Just do a simple search. You will find countless people convicted, yes convicted, of selling pirated
goods on ebay. Too bad they didn't know a simple letter would have solved the problem. They
could have skipped the whole criminal prosecution process.

Stephen C

 

Your post makes a great straw man argument but has nothing to do with what I originally replied to you. I never said that people cannot be convicted of a crime for certain intellectual property violations (I completely agree that people can be pursued by law enforcement agencies for doing so). Rather, I said that the notice the OP described was not related to a criminal charge, but to a civil action.

I also said that whether the seller has been banned from eBay has no bearing on whether the letter is valid. Companies which have their intellectual property rights infringed are completely free to send requests for payment in exchange for waiving their right to seek damages in a civil action. They do not have to seek eBay bans or go to law enforcement agencies to do so.

In response to your statement that, "There is just no way any company who claims its products were pirated would not contact the FBI first," I should say that you are simply wrong. There is no requirement to go to the police over intellectual property violations, and many intelligent plaintiffs would realize that they are more likely to be able to recover damages from a defendant who is not in jail and has not depleted their assets on attorney fees than one who is in jail and has depleted their assets on attorney fees. Please refer to the following cases initiated by the owner of P90X:

Product Partners, LLC v. Linda Brun et al
Product Partners, LLC v. Aaron Watts et al
Product Partners LLC v. Dana Alton et al
Product Partners, LLC v. Evan Leisersohn et al
Product Partners LLC v. Danette Faulkner et al
Product Partners LLC v. Robert Aucoin et al
Product Partners, LLC v. Costco Wholesale Corporation

Tell me which of those were reported to or are being investigated by the FBI.

In summary, you said in your most recent post:

So I wonder why you would say in your previous post:

You also said, in your most recent post:

I never said it was a reason for people to believe me, but I guess that you need to rely on straw men to make an argument.

You also said:

I never offered unpaid legal advice. I gave some general opinions on the law and possible outcomes and told the OP to contact a lawyer skilled in IP law.

I also never suggested that you cease offering unpaid legal advice; I suggested that you stay out of the legal forum because you stated that the OP's solution to receiving a legal notice demanding payment for intellectual property infringement is, to quote you, "blow them off," since eBay had yet to ban him.

I look forward to reading your reply which indicates which of the abovementioned civil actions brought by Product Partners, LLC involved an FBI investigation.

 

Being a lawyer, pretending to be, or trying to puff yourself up has nothing to
with this thread.

Selling pirated software is something the feds would be involved with. Not
silly letters from lawyers.

That's like me driving the getaway car in a bank holdup and getting a letter
from the bank saying, pay us back or else. Yeah. Right.

You would be charged with a crime and hauled into court. No letter from
the bank's lawyer would keep that from happening. The feds would be
involved like flies on garbage.

Maybe you would tell your client to just give back money and hey, no problem!

People think that the legal system is a slam dunk on either side. It's not.
Remember OJ? How'd that work out for ya?

If this is really a case of selling pirated software, a whole lot of agencies would
be involved. And you know that.

Maybe you actually need to do some research on pirated software and other
fake items. See how many people got off with a letter. Try years in prison along
with fines.

Stephen C

 

You'll have to check the ebay TOS to see if it prohibits dropshipping. If it doesn't then the company you purchased from are liable, not you. Then the company you purchased from will have to pay you compensation and will be sued by the company pressing charges. Go to court, you did nothing wrong so you will get off and get compensation.

 

So, to be clear, you have declined to respond with proof that an FBI investigation was involved with a single one of these cases brought by the owner of P90X:

Product Partners, LLC v. Linda Brun et al
Product Partners, LLC v. Aaron Watts et al
Product Partners LLC v. Dana Alton et al
Product Partners, LLC v. Evan Leisersohn et al
Product Partners LLC v. Danette Faulkner et al
Product Partners LLC v. Robert Aucoin et al
Product Partners, LLC v. Costco Wholesale Corporation

 

i just want to know what the outcome is of all these cases because i cant find $JIT at all on them.. from what i can tell by public record is only a handful of cases have closed

 

This is a prime example of the hundreds of letters I've gotten over the years from various law firms. If they did decide to take you to court they would have to prove you knew the DVDs you were selling were pirated, have to prove that it was your goal to sell pirated movies and prove that people actually did buy from you. In essence this would be a 2 year court case with a maximum fine of $25,000 for first offense. Lets see that would make the company -$200,000 (or more) for legal fees over the course of 2 years, definitely not worth their time unless they have billions of dollars to blow to make you an example. From a legal stand point, your completely worthless and they are trying to extort you. Don't reply to the letter, don't do anything (there is no need) and everything will be fine.

 

has anyone really done this PM me if you want.

 

here is another thought...maybe it could be a sub company of the company you were selling dvds for?? knowing that they are fake... and that youd have no way of knowing, and then trying to get money out of you for doing so... how would they even know if the movies were fake?

 

I sold some beachbody products on ebay. They took my listings down saying they where fake even thoe they seemed real to me and everyone was selling this product. After I was taken down I never sold anouther one, like you I dont want to get in trouble. Month later I receive an email like other people have stated they are demanding 15000 dollars from me or they will file the lawsuit in CA on March 25 2010. I blew it off as crap. I get anouther letter in the mail that I had to sign for that had the same information in it but with a new letter that basically said. We are serious this time if you dont respond we will file the law suit but with no time line. My thought was if they had a case against me why did they not file the suit when they said they would. It still seems bogus. Here is anouther interesting point the terms on the web site says you may not resale there product and if that is the case then why have they not told ebay or filed against ebay for allowing there product to be sold on the site. Inless the hole thing is crap or they have a deal with ebay so they can just sue people to make extra money. Since this is a policy of theres then I would think you could counter sue them for not following there own policy and putting you in this situation in the first place. If they told ebay not to allow this product to be sold on ebay then you would not of tried to sell it. I would think they have the right to stop ebay from allowing these items to be sold but they are still for sell to this day. Makes know since. As a side joke I lost my job and am in Chapter 7 now so I guess they can do what they want but I listed them as a creditor just to be on the safe side. Good luck to them.

 

They are sending you a demand letter, few cases ever go to trial and most are handled out of court. It's a lot cheaper to send a $3 demand letter and see if the person will settle out of court, rather than spending $400 on filling charges and fee's, in hopes that the person will actually show up to court. Then they have to prove their case, hope for a favorable outcome and then worry about collecting on the judgement.

 

whatever you told us here , mail it to them too man! and don't be confused, they can't harm you if you never did the illegal thing intentionally

 

If that don't work you may have to pound the hound. Go out there and defend yourself pro se in court. It will be a good learning experience.

 

This seems to be a popular topic. Was wondering how the OP made out and if anyone else ignored them and actually heard from them again.

 

Don't know much about this stuff but Acewonder's letter he got sure sounds to me like blackmail. Wouldn't they just state the fines that he owes up front for the crime {if it is one} rather than say "Pay us this and we'll drop this"?

 

Because the company threatening him are not law enforcement so they can't issue a "fine". They are saying that if he pays them X then they won't take court action against him. If they did take court action against him it would probably be for an amount much more than they are asking initially and if he lost he might also be liable for attorney's fees which could run into 10's or 100's of thousands. Court action is a gamble for both sides so many companies would prefer to resolve the issue in other ways that satisfy them without excessive risk.

What happens next depends on what the OP does, and how serious the company are. Ignorance is no defence, and just because he didn't know he was doing anything wrong will not help him if the company decide to pursue. The good thing is that what most companies hope to achieve when people sell their goods illegally is to close down the perpetrators and scare anyone else who might have considered it into not doing it. Some companies will take it further to set an example to others but I hope for the OPs sake that this doesn't happen. There's no real telling what will happen next as it is entirely the decision of the company. My feeling is that they are unlikely to pursue a minor but you can never be 100% sure.