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February 18, 2008 Scientology abuses eBay's VeRO program to practice religious, price discriminationBy the time Bill (not his real name) left the Church of Scientology a few years ago, he had amassed quite a collection of Scientology material—mostly books, tapes, e-meters. But ex-members of Scientology (especially staff members) find themselves in a difficult spot in this regard when they leave Scientology: their books, tapes, and e-meters are only valued by Scientologists, who, quite inconveniently, are strongly discouraged (read: disallowed) from communicating with ex-members—as any ex-Scientologist will tell you.
Not surprisingly, he turned to eBay, where a Scientologist buyer can remain blissfully unaware that his seller is a declared suppressive person. But every time he
attempts to sell his e-meter on eBay, the listing is removed within hours by the Church of Scientology, which claims that the listing violates their intellectual property
rights. See screenshots of the auctions while they were up here
If you’re uninitiated to eBay, you’d probably think that for each of these removals, the Church of Scientology informs eBay of the violation of its rights, eBay
considers the merits of their argument, and then only then does eBay yank the listing. But that’s not what happens at all. Instead, eBay effectively deputizes
Scientology, which logs into eBay and removes the listings itself.
The mechanism that permits the Church of Scientology (and others) such broad access and discretion is called the Verified Rights Owner
("VeRO
It should come as little surprise that VeRO members routinely overreach, as the cost of challenging a listing removal is almost always prohibitive.
(See my paper on this subject here
But Bill's e-meters (and the e-meters other ex-Scientologists have attempted to sell on eBay) are not counterfeits and do not violate the Church of Scientology's
trademarks, patents, or copyrights. Some sellers have even included the serial number found at the bottom of each e-meter in their listings in order to authenticate them.
There is no source confusion, as every seller whose e-meters have been removed have made it clear that they took the photo of the e-meter, and that they are not
affiliated with the Church of Scientology. Patent law doesn't prevent the resale of patented items, and patent law barely covers e-meters anyway, the first
In short, the Church of Scientology is at least constructively aware that the e-meters being listed on eBay are authentic, and so have no basis under trademark—or
under any other intellectual property basis, for removing these listings. What's actually going on here is that Scientology is abusing eBay's VeRO program, knowingly
alleging Intellectual Property violations that clearly don't exist, so that they can limit the secondary market for e-Meters, controlling both the price and who can get them.
It shouldn’t shock anyone that Scientology is trying to limit (if not eliminate) the secondary marketplace for e-meters, since they have a strong motivation to control
the price on e-meters from their own production line (they update to a newer more expensive model every few years), and a strong motivation to control to whom
they're sold. The economic motivation should be clear enough—Scientology doesn't want what few members it has being exposed to a secondary market because
it would undermine their monopoly on a prohibitively expensive and infrequently purchased item.
Scientology's other motivation for wanting to be the only game in town is intrinsically cultish—it has long perpetuated the idea that e-meters should never be used
outside of the auspices of the Church. In other words, not only should Scientology be the sole sale source, but it should also be able to dictate every element of the
post-sale environment—who can use it, how it can be used, etc. If e-meters are being sold on eBay, it doesn't know the purchaser and can't therefore control how
and by whom it's used.
Indeed, the warning label at the bottom of each e-meter demonstrates the kind of control to which I’m referring. The need for a
label came about after the FDA took offense at Scientology’s claim that the e-meter retained medical benefits; the court eventually
agreed with the FDA and mandated a disclaimer, which has morphed
from the original into the following:
But Bill and the other similarly afflicted sellers are not without a legal basis for a complaint. It's possible to argue that
Scientology is engaging in price fixing, tortious interference with a contract, misrepresentation, perjury, unfair competition,
discriminatory business practices, and religious discrimination, to name a few off the top of my head. Scientology's intellectual
property rights in its e-meter stop well short of being able to prevent a secondary market from existing, but eBay's VeRO
program permits them to essentially do just that.
This is not a new development—it’s been going on for nearly 8 years, as
this Slashdot story shows. But it’s high time eBay did something about it.
posted by scott pilutik at February 18, 2008 01:48 AM
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