Just kind of pissed off at something that happened yesterday and wanted to blow off some steam about it.
About a month or so ago, my wife won a Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air speaker/dock system in a contest. It retails for up to $600. Well, a little over a week ago it arrived. Cool, right? Well, we didn't have any use for it as we already have an adequate sound system and this thing is huge and I don't find it particularly pleasing aesthetically.
So we talked and decided to sell it on eBay. Our two girls have never been on a vacation and our aunt & uncle live in Florida. They invited the girls to come down for a week this summer. I figured we could sell the speaker system and use that money to pay part of the trip for them. Simple, right?
Unfortunately, my listing was removed from eBay yesterday for copyright infringement. You see, I took several pictures of the system (in the box-it's still sealed) and listed them, but figured a pic of the system out of the box would let potential buyers see what it actually looked like. A quick Google search and zip, I had my pic and uploaded it with the rest. So yesterday when my listing gets removed for copyright infringement, I get the email from eBay that Bowers & Wilkins
the company or a representative of the company requested the listing be removed. Really?
REALLY? They claim I used a "stock photo." Gee...I didn't know it was a crime to use a stock photo. Isn't that what eBay usually pops onto your items when you list them unless you choose to use a different photo?
So here's little old me, a middle-class working Joe trying to make a few bucks selling an item we won to pay for our kid's trip to Florida. And a company takes issue with that? Are eBay sellers really hurting their bottom line so much they have to troll the listings looking for copyright infringements? It's ridiculous! There are only ever a handful of these on there at any given time anyway and almost all of them are used!
If anyone is interested, I've relisted the system sans the offending image. My eBay seller name is tempest92. I had to get it off my chest. It just really pissed me off to get off work and see that message from eBay. To me, it's a real dick move by a dick company, especially since nowhere in the pic did it say Bowers & Wilkins. It was just a pic of the dock system sitting on a table!