VERO: eBay Sues Company for Frivolous DMCA Takedowns

[mandy]

A while back I wrote about a case in which an eBay seller sued a company called Innovate! Technology for wrongly invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to cancel his eBay auctions. Although the company claimed that the eBay sales infringed its intellectual property rights, its real complaint was that the sales did not comply with its minimum pricing policy. In other words, the company claimed that its intellectual property rights were violated because its products were priced too low.

Innovate Technology! responded to the suit with what seems to have been a huge tactical blunder: it impleaded eBay, asserting that, if it were held liable to the eBay seller, it would be entitled to indemnification from the auction company. Probably not a good move. eBay generally stays out of DMCA disputes and simply follows the DMCA's statutory takedown provisions, which provide it with immunity from damages. But it could not ignore a lawsuit, and yesterday filed an answer and counterclaim against Innovate! for abuse of the DMCA process, seeking damages, attorneys' fees, and an injunction prohibiting Innovate! from filing any more DMCA notices...

full article: http://pubcit.typepad.com/clpblog/2008/0...es-ba.html

[bargainbloodhound]

filed an answer and counterclaim against Innovate! for abuse of the DMCA process

There are dozens of companies who are abusing the DMCA "in an attempt to manipulate the secondary product markets through artificially higher prices"