eBay is committed to protecting the intellectual property rights of third parties and to providing its users with a safe place to trade. Infringement is the unauthorised use of other people’s intellectual property – like copyrighted material and trademarks.

Rules that affect what you can sell on eBay

The following items are restricted or prohibited because they would potentially infringe on intellectual property rights.

• Replica, counterfeit Items and unauthorised copies

• Celebrity material including Faces, names and signatures, and autographs

• Media - movie prints (35 mm, 70 mm), bootleg recordings, recordable media, promotional copies and digitally delivered goods

• Software including academic software, beta software, OEM software

• Equipment that would support unauthorised copies including mod chips, game enhancers, and boot discs; and hardware or software that would enable members to duplicate copy-protected material

Rules that affect how you list items for sale

In an item listing eBay members cannot:

• Encourage or enable others to infringe copyright, trademarks or other rights.

• Improperly use eBay Intellectual Property (including use of the eBay name, logo or linking to the eBay website).

• Include authenticity disclaimers or deny responsibility for the items offered in their listings.

• Use another member’s item description or picture without their permission. (To contact eBay about another member who is using your text or images without your permission, go to the Item Description and Picture Theft Policy page and use the 'Report' link.)

eBay’s VeRo program

eBay created the Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) program so that intellectual property owners could easily report listings that infringe their rights. It is in eBay’s interest to ensure that infringing items are removed from the site, as they erode buyer and good seller trust.

If you are a Verified Rights Owner and want to report a listing issue, see Reporting Intellectual Property Infringements.

Note: Only the intellectual property rights owner can report potentially infringing items or listings through eBay's VeRO program. If you are not the intellectual property rights owner, you can still help by getting in touch with the rights owner and encouraging them to contact us. For a list of rights owners who participate in eBay’s VeRO program, view the list of About Me pages.

If your listing was removed through VeRO, and you believe it was removed in error, see How eBay Protects Intellectual Property (VeRO).

For more information take eBay's Intellectual Property policy tutorial.