Apple Blocked eBay Sale of 3G MacBook Pro
You might remember earlier in the week when a 3G-equipped MacBook Pro cropped up on eBay. The person selling this unique laptop said that he had bought the computer from a someone on Craigslist who was selling it for parts. Once he got his hands on it and realized it wasn't a run of the mill 2007 MacBook Pro, he repaired it and put it up on eBay. By Monday, the bidding had reached $70,000. However, it wasn't long before the listing was pulled. Apparently, Apple blocked the sale. Posting to the MacRumors forums, the seller, going by the name of 'evilroot,' said that he received the following message from eBay regarding his posting:
Your listing has been removed.
Your item was removed because of a request we received from Apple, Inc., a member of our Verified Rights Owner Program (VeRO), asking us to remove the item for:
- Item(s) infringes copyrights, trademarks or other intellectual property rights.
"As of now I know nothing further. I suppose I'll wait to hear from Apple and see what the explanation is and how to proceed," he wrote. "I'm really bummed out, obviously," he continued. "I put a lot of time and effort in and was under the distinct impression everything was legitimate. I also e-mailed Steve Jobs asking for clarification . . . . who knows, maybe he'll reply!"
In the absence of a buyer for the laptop, evilroot posted more pictures of the machine on the MacRumors forums, including additional photos of that ever so interesting antenna on the side of the display assembly. It turns out its actually a 'MagSafe' style setup that utilizes two magnets and comes right off. One assumes that this was to ensure the antenna didn't snap off should the user forget to retract it before throwing it in a bag or briefcase, or catch it on something while it was extended.


It's a laptop, that is under-powered, and runs on a high latency, slow connection. Let's pay $70,000 for it huh? DERP!
It's a laptop, that is under-powered, and runs on a high latency, slow connection. Let's pay $70,000 for it huh? DERP!
They are the Big Brother now.
Bye Bye Arses !!!
So basically if you find any apple product, by any means, you are not allowed to sell it? How soon till I'm not allowed to put my own damn phone on ebay to sell? ( i don't actually own an iphone and very happy about that fact)
The only way I would see them blocking the sale of this legally is if they had proof it was stolen. Don't have a police repot? F off apple. It sounds like someone at apple threw this machine out seeing as how it's 4 years old. It's now something of a collectors item it seems.
If I have an old "junk" car and donate it to good will, and someone comes along realizes it's a classic and gets 100K for it, do I have ANY legal right to complain? Hell no I don't. The only time Apple/Jobs is happy is when he's standing behind you with your pants around your ankles telling you exactly what to do, what to think, and what to buy.
I'm not generally one to wish death on anyone, but when old jobsey boy kicks the bucket and apple goes into a decline the world WILL be a better place.
Not really... on eBay you can bid as much as you want but only you will know how much, because others, including the seller will see only that you are the highest bidder with a small increment over the last bidder. So if many people bid to 10k and here comes a "joker" and bids 70K, then the price of the item will show up as ~11K... until someone else bids 12K and an automatic bid will immediately appear as 13K from you.
So basically if you find any apple product, by any means, you are not allowed to sell it? How soon till I'm not allowed to put my own damn phone on ebay to sell? ( i don't actually own an iphone and very happy about that fact)
The only way I would see them blocking the sale of this legally is if they had proof it was stolen. Don't have a police repot? F off apple. It sounds like someone at apple threw this machine out seeing as how it's 4 years old. It's now something of a collectors item it seems.
If I have an old "junk" car and donate it to good will, and someone comes along realizes it's a classic and gets 100K for it, do I have ANY legal right to complain? Hell no I don't. The only time Apple/Jobs is happy is when he's standing behind you with your pants around your ankles telling you exactly what to do, what to think, and what to buy.
I'm not generally one to wish death on anyone, but when old jobsey boy kicks the bucket and apple goes into a decline the world WILL be a better place.
I would have thought that they wold block the item because it is presumed stolen. Not for copyright infringement. If Mercedes builds a prototype car, and a staff member steals it and sells it to someone else who puts it on ebay, then Mercedes has all the right to block that auction, and to recover the car. Now, if they contact The person on craigslist and that person says he found it on the street and has no affiliation to apple, then I don't know what the legal possibilities are to recover a lost prototype, but if you remember they took action even with the pre release iphone 4 last year.
But again, copyright and IP violations? This sounds like Apple is all butt-hurt that someone modded their beautiful, perfectly designed macbook, and doesn't want this to get out in the public so that people think Apple is making these, and then they'd get flooded with calls from thousands of retarded apple users asking questions about where they can get their own 3G-enabled macbook.
Probably something in the EULA forbidding the user from modifying the copyrighted and highly recognizable external appearance of the device. Next they'll sue Etsy users selling things like custom macbook and ipod skins.
There's a great eBay podcast that covers these sorts of situations. Do a search on Griff and eBay and you'll find it.
Maybe he lied about it getting pulled. Could be the illusion would be destroyed under close inspection, and didn't anyone actually looking at it.
Maybe the bid was fake. Either way he could have been using Apple's name to make a load of cash, and if it wasn't actually something they made that should be illegal.