Since the subject of protection of intellectual property rights online came up recently on this blog (see a note on L'Oreal v eBay case), I thought I'd follow up on a similar subject. Did you ever wonder how eBay is supposed to make sure that consumers (and traders) are not placing fake L'Oreal products on eBay's website? Since you are reading this blog post I can assume that you are familiar with at least some information on how the internet works. Our knowledge of all intricacies of the online world differs from person to person, though. Personally, I could not quite imagine a programme that would be able to help eBay out, taking into account thousands of people that use their website every day and who could spam it with illegal content. Until I've discovered how another website that also gets hundreds/thousands of people a day to post content on it (YouTube), controls its content and complies with legal requirements. I've recently watched this TED video ("How YouTube thinks about copyright"), in which Margaret Gould Stewart explained how YouTube operates when people post videos on it and how it is possible to protect copyrights on it. I found it fascinating, both as a consumer and as a lawyer, so I decided to share it.
