Comment by hirsin
18 hours ago
"Amazon announced it" in some back alley press report and certainly not in a proactive outreach way to tell these folks they were listing their products. At the very least there's a trademark issue here because these sellers in no way gave Amazon permission to reuse the images and descriptions of their products.
If I announce in my local paper (you get to guess which one) that you'll be throwing a party outside your house, I don't think you'll be on the side of "just tell them to go away and my neighbors will totally understand it wasn't really me"
Reminiscent of the Vogon plans for the highway through Arthur Dent's house being on display in Alpha Centauri for 50 Earth years.
> “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.
Using images of something you are selling is nominative use of the trademark. Whether their actual listings contains something that falls outside the nominative use test I don't know.
But at the end of the day you can't stop someone from reselling your stuff no matter how much you hate it, that has been clearly established by the First Sale Doctrine.
> If I announce in my local paper (you get to guess which one) that you'll be throwing a party outside your house, I don't think you'll be on the side of "just tell them to go away and my neighbors will totally understand it wasn't really me"
The comparison here would be that you are selling tickets to a party outside your house, which I don't think anyone would bat an eye at if the local newspaper announces?
>there's a trademark issue here because these sellers in no way gave Amazon permission to reuse the images and descriptions of their products
Good luck claiming damages with an "and then I sold more of my things at the advertised price" kind of argument.