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Jason Dunn
08-25-2005, 11:35 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://cgi.ebay.ca/Hard-Drive-with-68Gb-of-MP3-Music-MP3-Player-Filler_W0QQitemZ5232308426QQcategoryZ16178QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem' target='_blank'>http://cgi.ebay.ca/Hard-Drive-with-68Gb-of-MP3-Music-MP3-Player-Filler_W0QQitemZ5232308426QQcategoryZ16178QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem</a><br /><br /></div><i>"This is an auction for an 80Gb Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 Internal Hard Drive that has been used for about a month to back up a varied music collection. There's enough music to fill the largest iPod (or any other portable MP3 player) on the market at the moment! PLEASE NOTE...........THAT THIS DRIVE IS FOR BACKING UP YOUR CD / MINI DISC / VINYL / TAPE / MUSIC COLLECTION. I WILL MAKE A LIST OF THE ALBUMS AVAILABLE TO INTERESTED PARTIES AND, IF REQUIRED, WILL DELETE THE MUSIC THEY DO NOT OWN PRIOR TO DISPATCHING THE DRIVE. IF THE BUYER FINDS THAT, AFTER PURCHASING THE DRIVE, THEY DO NOT OWN THE ORIGINAL RECORDING OF ANY ONE, OR MORE, OF THE TRACKS ON ANY OF THE MEDIA ABOVE THEN IT IS THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO DELETE THESE TRACKS ON RECEIPT TO ABIDE BY INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAWS."</i><br /><br />I was browsing eBay today, looking for a small-ish hard drive, and came across this listing. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. If there's one thing guaranteed to make me roll my eyes, it's when people do illegal/immoral things but try to pretend they're doing something else through clever wording. :roll:

Pony99CA
08-26-2005, 12:44 AM
So did you report him?

As a follow-up, did you see the question where somebody was asking if he had other music available, perhaps outside of eBay? His answer seemed reasonable on its face:

I also respect the artist's rights and am woried that you think this is some sort of freebie. If you are interested, then you need see the file list, so that you can satistfy the copyright requirements. I've collected a lot more music than is on this hard drive, but I also own a copy of the recordings! If you want the list then please ask. I don't want to be selling anything illegal. This offer is to save you the hassle of ripping your own collection and the corresponding artwork. The collection took me years to collect and matching it to the artwork properly took me four months. It looks great on a iPod -but then I know - cos I've got 1!!! Kindest regards, Doug:-)

Of course, I really doubt that many people have the same 80 GB or so of music that he has. Maybe somebody should bid, ask for the list, then have him delete about half the entries on the list. :-D

Oh, his auction title -- "iPod Filler" -- seems suspicious, too.

Steve

mariov
08-26-2005, 12:58 AM
LOL... Cool iPOD filler if you ask me. I doubt anyone can afford 80 gb of music... :D :)

randalllewis
08-26-2005, 01:03 AM
Showing my age with this story, I once owned a reel to reel tape deck on which I recorded copies of nearly all of my vinyl albums. Tape hiss was easier to listen to (the deck had early Dolby technology) than the scratches that eventually show up on vinyl. After college, I purchased a good quality cassette deck with more advanced Dolby technology and re-recorded all of the vinyl onto cassettes. Even though cassettes proved to be more fragile than reel to reel tape, they were cheap and could be played in a car. I sold the reel to reel deck (using that pre ebay method called classified ads) and threw in the tape collection which by that time had full or partial copies of over a hundred albums. This was, of course, all prior to the current digital copyright laws, but I guess I robbed the Stones and the Beatles and Carlos Santana, et al of income. If I followed your ebay seller's lead, I should have erased those portions of the tapes that contained music my buyer hadn't purchased. What a joke.

Pony99CA
08-26-2005, 01:06 AM
This was, of course, all prior to the current digital copyright laws, but I guess I robbed the Stones and the Beatles and Carlos Santana, et al of income.
It wasn't prior to copyright laws, though. Regardless of whether the media was digital or analog, I suspect that would have been considered illegal.

Steve

ChunkyMonkey
08-26-2005, 03:37 AM
Darn it!!!

The auction has already ended. I was looking to get digital copies of all my records and 8-tracks

:D

:wink:

nerd1701
08-26-2005, 02:30 PM
Showing my age with this story, I once owned a reel to reel tape deck on which I recorded copies of nearly all of my vinyl albums. Tape hiss was easier to listen to (the deck had early Dolby technology) than the scratches that eventually show up on vinyl. After college, I purchased a good quality cassette deck with more advanced Dolby technology and re-recorded all of the vinyl onto cassettes. Even though cassettes proved to be more fragile than reel to reel tape, they were cheap and could be played in a car. I sold the reel to reel deck (using that pre ebay method called classified ads) and threw in the tape collection which by that time had full or partial copies of over a hundred albums. This was, of course, all prior to the current digital copyright laws, but I guess I robbed the Stones and the Beatles and Carlos Santana, et al of income. If I followed your ebay seller's lead, I should have erased those portions of the tapes that contained music my buyer hadn't purchased. What a joke.

Problem is that he's selling the value of the music, not the hard drive itself. The final price was over $200 american, which is 4-5x the value of a used 80Gb hard drive.

Jason Dunn
08-26-2005, 10:31 PM
Problem is that he's selling the value of the music, not the hard drive itself. The final price was over $200 american, which is 4-5x the value of a used 80Gb hard drive.

Yeah, that's exactly the problem - everyone knew that's what they were paying for, and HE knew that's what they were paying for, but he thought he was being clever by pretending it wasn't. Lame. :roll:

08-27-2005, 04:21 PM
I think it's kind of clever, as far as scams go.

Pony99CA
08-29-2005, 07:03 AM
Problem is that he's selling the value of the music, not the hard drive itself. The final price was over $200 american, which is 4-5x the value of a used 80Gb hard drive.
Actually, if you read his ad (and believed it), he claimed he was selling the drive and the value of his time ripping the music and compiling the album art so the buyer wouldn't have to do those. That could be worth $200, especially if the buyer had those album on vinyl.

Whether that's what people were actually paying for is another matter....

Steve

Pony99CA
08-29-2005, 07:12 AM
Problem is that he's selling the value of the music, not the hard drive itself. The final price was over $200 american, which is 4-5x the value of a used 80Gb hard drive.
Yeah, that's exactly the problem - everyone knew that's what they were paying for, and HE knew that's what they were paying for, but he thought he was being clever by pretending it wasn't. Lame. :roll:
True, but no lamer than companies that sell automatic rifles with the automatic piece missing and sell the automatic piece separately, or the companies that sell copy protection breaking tools and put a copyright disclaimer on them, or companies that sell bomb plans and say they're for "educational use only".

Yes, they could all have the uses being claimed, but we know what most people are really buying them for.

Steve