J K Rowling does not have an injunction against eBay

by Chris Dawson

This post was written in February 2007; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

Two days ago news broke that J K Rowling (author of the Harry Potter series) had won an injunction against eBay India. Now it appears the initial reports were incorrect and eBay has released a statement.

eBay India eBay India strongly refutes the false claims of JK Rowling representatives in the media about a purported injunction by the Delhi High Court against eBay India (formerly Baazee.com).

In fact, in November 2004, the Delhi High Court DENIED Rowling’s request for an injunction against eBay and found that eBay had fulfilled all of its legal obligations by removing all the offending listings of Harry Potter ebooks by 4 Baazee.com sellers.

For the last two years, the case has been proceeding normally through the Indian legal system and is at the stage of ‘framing the issues’ (pretrial). The new development in January 2007 is that the Delhi High Court affirmed the 2004 injunction against the 4 offending sellers who had been selling ebooks. This has no impact on eBay itself.

Although it is uncertain that a legal ruling in India would have any validity in the US or Europe, it’s certainly good news for eBay. It appears Rowling’s lawyers may have been a little over enthusiastic in their comments to the press.

Tags for this post: , , ,
Author: Chris Dawson
Posted at: Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Filed Under Uncategorized
 

Comments

2 Responses to “J K Rowling does not have an injunction against eBay”

  1. TameBay : Harry Potter and the pirates of eBay on March 4th, 2007 3:31 pm

    [...] This response from eBay does seem a little lame. Listings *are* currently held for security checking before they’re allowed on to the site. This could be done for anything with “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” in the title - though of course, if someone has just sued you *and* put out misinformation about the results, you might not be feeling very cooperative. [...]

  2. J K Rowling “spreading misinformation” about eBay : TameBay on June 10th, 2007 11:05 am

    [...] The two sides have been arguing over Harry Potter pirate ebooks sold on eBay India (formerly known as bazee.com) since 2004. eBay are now claiming that Rowling’s representatives have consistently misrepresented the case to the media, for example by claiming that they had won an injunction against eBay when this was not the case. [...]

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