General Forum

I was perusing eBay recently and came across a disturbing number of sellers that have self-made reprints of cards for sale, some for outrageous prices.

How is this legal?

I guess as long as they list it as a reprint (which to their defense they did), but isn't this copyright infringement at the very least since they are trying to profit off someone else's property?

They're not reprints, they're forgeries.  And no, it isn't legal. 

100% agree...a legitimate reprint still needs to be licensed. What eBay has been inundated with are indeed forgeries...including images and logos that have been, quite frankly, stolen. I recently spent some time updating all my eBay saved search alerts to include "-reprint" and "-custom" to eliminate these from my feed.

I report tons of these on ebay but nothing ever happens, I guess they don't care as long as it's not listed as an original.

This is so sad, as a collector of vintage and new, this gives me doubt that the cards that don't indicate reprint really are original.  I do buy vintage cards off of COMC and Deans.  Since they actually house the cards I'm hoping they do their do diligence.  

I bought a LeBron James rookie card from COMC and didn't notice that it was probably a fake until about six months later. They offered a full refund including return shipping if I sent it back to them, despite the lengthy delay between me purchasing it and reporting the problem. (In fact, I hadn't even requested a refund when I contacted them. I was just urging them to take a closer look at other cards received from the same seller.)

The bad news for me: It was a $25 card when I bought it but six months later (just after the Cavs 2016 championship) it was a $50 card when I got my refund and went shopping for a replacement. 

Brad, which set was that? I might have some LeBron rookies in my not yet entered stash... keyword being might, lol. If you still need it and I have it, it's yours...

It was the Fleer Tradition set, and I have one now.

Unlicensed reprint = counterfeit

It is prohibited to sell replicas, counterfeits, knockoffs and unauthorized copies on eBay. According to eBay, selling such items can infringe on someone’s copyright or trademark, which is against the law and against eBay policy. 

Selling counterfeit goods is illegal in the U.S or Canada, though there aren’t currently any laws for punishing consumers for buying counterfeits. 

Unfortunately, the practice of selling "reprints" on EBay is rampant as there seems to be little to no repercussions for sellers who do so.

If it's an EXACT copy of a licensed card and not made by the licensed company, it is a forgery and that's illegal. Topps reprints a ton of their own cards (to excess IMO), but they made the original and usually make it obvious that they re-printed it. That is legally okay.

I'm still not sure how ACEO is getting away with so much of that. They are reprinting cards they didn't make originally, but apparently slightly altering the card and telling everyone what they did gets them off the hook for copyright infringement. I still don't see how that is legal or how the manufacturers haven't gone after them yet. Heck, Beckett goes insane over anyone copying their checklists and marketing data. So much so that they intentionally put errors in their CL's to find out when their CL/info was copied by another company. Look how many publishers/websites they took out by doing that!