[moose10101]

I do not agree. Jon's copycat went as far as copying and selling his instructions with the exact same kit. That must certainly be a breach of some kind of right (copyright probably, but again, I'm not familiar enough with matters of law to get this kind of reference exactly correct). Ebay refused to help Jon rid the copycats. To me that sucks.

I don't see where Jon stated that the other guy was selling the kits on eBay. And even if he is, he'd have to display the stolen instructions on his auction page in order to have eBay act on any complaint by Jon. eBay can't remove listings just because it "feels" wrong. They need proof, and they can and do act on copyright violations. BTW, buying the general kits and doing a pre-cut sale is, I believe, perfectly legal, as long as the seller doesn't make any attempt to infer any connection to Jon. Obviously, doctoring the instructions is not legal.

On top of the above comes the issue of business ethics. Business is not without ethics. Ebay surely perfectly understands that refusing help to a long standing good member (17,479 feedbacks, 100% score) is not right. Being a large company is no excuse for not caring about individual customers. The same ethics that apply to any human being doing business with another human being apply to ebay as well.

So if I, as a long standing good member of eBay, asked them to take out a competitor, they should do it because of "ethics", even if I can't prove the other guy is doing anything wrong? Wow. Glad I don't live in that world.

In my personal opinion (everybody has the right to have a different opinion) ebay was professionally and ethically lacking in Jon's case.

So the arguments so far are:

1) eBay should remove the copycat even if they can't see that he's a copycat.

2) eBay should remove the copycat because Jon is a good guy and a long standing good customer.

3) eBay should remove the copycat because their fees and policies toward sellers have gotten worse (a total non-sequitur argument).

4) eBay should remove the copycat because not doing so feels wrong ethically.

Fail.