I bought what I thought was a "collectors edition in excellent condition" vhs video on ebay. When it arrived it was a copy of the movie that the guy made. It was an old movie that I could not find anywhere else. I don't think it ever made it to video. Has he broken any laws? Am I breaking the law by buying it and having it? Please help.

NeedKarma

Most likely not. Copyright laws aren't effective forever though I am unsure if the duration of movie copyrights. If it is a very old or very obscure then you won't have a problem since the copyright has likely expired or it's not worth the effort of the copyright holder to prosecute.

Whether the auction misrepresented the product is another story. We'd have to see the original auction page for that.

Fr_Chuck

Did he break a law, well false advertising, maybe a copyright law, but you should be ok, since it is ok to copy for personal use.

If he made fase add, notify ebay so they can be aware of this.

NeedKarma

But this isn't for personal use, he made a copy to sell.

twinkiedooter

Contact EBay about this seller. They like to keep people like him off their auctions. I've been sucessful buying things off EBay and Amazon but never had someone pull that one on me. EBay will definitely take care of him in short order. Hope you didn't pay too much for the tape. Oh well, if you couldn't buy it anywhere else consider yourself lucky that you at least have it now.

NeedKarma

What we don't know is that the auction page could have mentioned that it was a copy - we'll never know unless we have a link or a screenshot of it.

Fr_Chuck

You can own a copy of something, but it is illegal to sell it, so you yourself should have no issue but the person who sold it broke the laws.