Ebay crackdown by GW

Frank · Post by **Frank** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 1:03 pm

Odium Khan wrote:Over all, I think it's a good thing that the Blood Bowl trademark gets protected.

Btw. the same seems to happen for "Spacehulk". Because of this some of us are expecting a new version of Spacehulk this year.

gken1 · Post by **gken1** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 1:31 pm

just change your phrasing of mini's:

Death Bowl with Blood

It'll still it the key words.....

Snew · Post by **Snew** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 8:44 pm

I may have to do that. I've decided to liquidate my entire collection.

fen · Post by **fen** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 9:01 pm

What exactly is being hit? Is it anything with Blood Bowl in the title, or is it non-GW ranges that mention Blood Bowl? Are official GW BB minis a problem?

Cause I still have a few more spare duplicates of various BB Star Players to offload next month and obviously I'd rather avoid any stress.

browwnrob · Post by **browwnrob** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 10:41 am

think it would be rather unfair to not allow people to sell actual BB minis on ebay... Im guessing this hits the amount of indie mini traders on ebay

Lahatiel · Post by **Lahatiel** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 1:06 am

Judging by the one page of results of still on eBay at this moment, by a title-only (not including descriptions, as Tom said) search of "blood bowl," it looks like official GW figures are still OK. Basically, if something is an actual Blood Bowl product produced by GW, it's OK to put "Blood Bowl" in the auction listing title; if it's only similar to Blood Bowl, ala the indies, you can't put "Blood Bowl" in the listing title, only in the description text. Since GW owns the phrase "Blood Bowl" in reference to fantasy football miniatures, eBay will let them dictate this limitation. Don't get wrong -- I don't agree with the policy and don't think it's right for them to do so! Unfortunately, though, these are the rules and it looks like GW finally decided to bother enforcing them.

Snew · Post by **Snew** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 2:26 am

When I was active on eBay they used to do this once in a while. It passed quickly then. Hopefully it will go the same way again, now.

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 3:15 pm

Snew wrote:I may have to do that. I've decided to liquidate my entire collection.

As long as the figs are GW BB ones Steve, you are okay to put Blood Bowl in the auction title. Its just the Indie stuff that is limited to the description text only. (just repeating what Lahatiel said as an agreement with his summary)

Galak

Jonny_P · Post by **Jonny_P** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 5:02 pm

Does GW crack down on fantasy miniatures just putting the word Warhammer in titles too?

On a similar note I have seen people selling Armorcast (Non GW big resin items before GW created Forge World) and in the titles they put "Not Forge World" to make sure people searching for Forge World still see it.

I don't see a problem with any of that. But I guess my question is, is GW only focussing on 3rd party BB mini's?

Lahatiel · Post by **Lahatiel** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 3:11 am

I don't know, myself, whether GW was actively policing non-Blood Bowl auctions at this time as well. But I do know that doing something like putting "Not Forge World" in the title of an Armorcast auction is actually against eBay's own rules, regardless of GW themselves saying anything about it. Of course, whether or not a) any casual buyers reported such an auction to eBay and then b) eBay bothered to to action if it was reported by anyone other than the legal copyright holder, that's a whole other story. But technically, by eBay's own rules, it's still an illegal tactic.