Ebay Seller or Scammer?

[Tajmaster]

[edit]
@All

I have moved these posts from a wanted thread as they are about a particular eBay member that maybe up to no good.
This is not a reflection to any members here whom recommend or have used this seller, this discussion is about knowing the difference between legal distribution of both Workbench and Kickstart and obviously illegitimate copies being sold.

So without further ado, Taj is gonna kick off this thread =)

Zetr0
_____________________________________________________



Hi Steve

Try this link for a 3.1 ROM and WB 3.1 disk set:

[link removed]

Its £15+P&P BIN. Ive bought off him before and if they are gone when you come to look at the link just send him a message and Im sure he will have more, he lists them often

 

[SteveK]

Hi Tajmaster,

That's brilliant, many thanks, will be ordering this today!

Steve

 

[Cluster]

I also got mine from there. Recommended.

 

[fitzsteve]

I've bought from him in the past too, but bare in mind they are not genuine rom/disks. Its burned EEPROM and Backup Disks.

If you want genuine, then Amigakit sell them.

 

[AndyLandy]

I've bought from him in the past too, but bare in mind they are not genuine rom/disks. Its burned EEPROM and Backup Disks.

If you want genuine, then Amigakit sell them.

Wha? I bought from him myself. I got a genuine set of 3.1 disks and a genuine Kickstart 3.1 ROM.

 

[fitzsteve]

I've bought from him in the past too, but bare in mind they are not genuine rom/disks. Its burned EEPROM and Backup Disks.

If you want genuine, then Amigakit sell them.

Wha? I bought from him myself. I got a genuine set of 3.1 disks and a genuine Kickstart 3.1 ROM.

My WB Disks came on White Disks, originals are Blue AFAIK. Rom has a printed sticker on it.

I'm pretty sure its not genuine, please correct me if I'm wrong on this though.

It all works great and was cheap, but as you know you get what you pay for.

I also got my 3.1/1.3 rom switch from him which works great. So as a seller I'm 100% satisfied with him.

Steve.

 

[AndyLandy]

My WB Disks came on White Disks, originals are Blue AFAIK. Rom has a printed sticker on it.

I'm pretty sure its not genuine, please correct me if I'm wrong on this though.

Ir works great and was cheap, but as you know you get what you pay for.

Steve.

I don't think the big C= were consistent with disk colours. Most Workbench 2.04 disks are blue, but the ones that came with my A500+ when it was brand new are grey. I've even got a set of Workbench 1.3 disks where the Workbench disk is blue, but the Extras one is grey. I suspect that C= just ordered in a bunch of disks and didn't think too much about it.

In fact, it's rather more subtle than that. If you look at the ROM, it says "Licensed to Power Computing" on it. A bit of Googling around the subject suggests that PowerC were actually licensed to distribute OS 3.1 -- It's quite possible that they made these disk sets and ROMs independently of C= or Escom/AT. Whether they are 'genuine' or 'original' is a matter of personal taste, but they are almost certainly 'legitimate'

 

[Tajmaster]

I've bought from him in the past too, but bare in mind they are not genuine rom/disks. Its burned EEPROM and Backup Disks.

If you want genuine, then Amigakit sell them.

Wha? I bought from him myself. I got a genuine set of 3.1 disks and a genuine Kickstart 3.1 ROM.

My WB Disks came on White Disks, originals are Blue AFAIK. Rom has a printed sticker on it.

I'm pretty sure its not genuine, please correct me if I'm wrong on this though.

It all works great and was cheap, but as you know you get what you pay for.

I also got my 3.1/1.3 rom switch from him which works great. So as a seller I'm 100% satisfied with him.

Steve.

Exactly

 

[Cluster]

I got genuine disks with mine... the rom I cant speak for as I would not know the difference in all honesty.

I basically got what was in the picture

 

[Calgor]

My WB Disks came on White Disks, originals are Blue AFAIK. Rom has a printed sticker on it.

I'm pretty sure its not genuine, please correct me if I'm wrong on this though.

Ir works great and was cheap, but as you know you get what you pay for.

Steve.

I don't think the big C= were consistent with disk colours. Most Workbench 2.04 disks are blue, but the ones that came with my A500+ when it was brand new are grey. I've even got a set of Workbench 1.3 disks where the Workbench disk is blue, but the Extras one is grey. I suspect that C= just ordered in a bunch of disks and didn't think too much about it.

In fact, it's rather more subtle than that. If you look at the ROM, it says "Licensed to Power Computing" on it. A bit of Googling around the subject suggests that PowerC were actually licensed to distribute OS 3.1 -- It's quite possible that they made these disk sets and ROMs independently of C= or Escom/AT. Whether they are 'genuine' or 'original' is a matter of personal taste, but they are almost certainly 'legitimate'

If you are thinking they are almost certainly legitimate, some things do not support the case:

- he has sold as many as 13 of them from that listing (3 remain)
- he has purchased disk labels multiple times from ebay history
- he has purchased blank eproms of the kind suitable for amiga use 27C400 multiple times
- no one else from another source has yet mentioned they have had wb disks with white plastic

Why is he buying so many eproms? If the eproms are burned, all the better the chance that the disks are also copied and not original. I most certainly would not be using those disks as input to any archiving activity! If the disks are dumped with sps tool they may be able to tell you if they are originals or not, as they can do that with games disks.

Yes power computing were licensed at one stage I believe as were Villagetronic and some may have had stickers on them (one of my amigas came with such eproms) - but it is easy these days to copy everything. I could copy it all myself and you would not be able to tell the difference except perhaps with sps dumping tool and verification.

 

[Zetr0]

Commodore Gateway and Escom all used various colours of Floppy Disks

Those that I know of and have here are

Blue, Black, White and Grey.


I am concerned about this particular vendor, as if one looks at his previous purchases

1. AMD 27C400 UV Eprom AMD27C400-150 x 10 pices [Mar 14th]
2. STICKY LABEL REMOVER THE BEST FROM TABLEAU REALLY GOOD [Mar 3rd]
3. PressIt A4 Floppy Disc Label 40 New UK In Stock (#400178177276) [Mar 2nd ]
4. AMD 27C400 UV Eprom AMD27C400-150 x 10 pices (#260613928118) [Jan 6th]

The seller has been selling these items since the 14th of last month.

this is very VERY concerning my friends, however this thread is not for its discussion, I shall be moving all this to a new thread.


AmiBay is not here to police other peoples IP and or Copyright, however in the obvious cases of infringement the action AmiBay would take is removal of the either the material from the site, in this matter it is a link to eBay, this is to a buy it now, and is ment in the spirit of community.

While there is a lot of suspicion in this matter, one would need physical proof that the items sold by this eBay seller, however the only thing we can do here is remove the link. Should that it be proved that these items sold by the eBay seller are indeed fraudulent we can only inform parties that have the legal right to pursue this matter in the courts.

 

[scrappysphinx]

The seller has been selling these items since the 14th of last month.

Z good buddy, he's been selling these a lot longer than that as i bought a few as long back as when i lived at my old address which i left around 2 and half years ago.

Mike

 

[Calgor]

@Zetr0

How sure are you that your white disks are originals? If you got them before inkjet printers became so good and cheap and you are the original buyer from a brick and mortar store then much more likely original. If however they are second hand and os3.1 and bought online from a seller with multiple copies then less likely as that os version is in demand by newer users.

I have only seen black, blue and grey but white is of course possible.

I once bought "original" os3.1 disks off ebay and they looked very legit. However, the disk labelled as storage was the extras disk! So I had received 2 extras disks! If not for that I would have thought they were original on balance if you had asked me to guess desite being a bit wary as the sticker quality was not as good as the bona fide originals I had that were bought before 94. Even still they could have been originals but given the above on balance I would say no. Lesson learned was the burden of proof has to be higher.

 

[AndyLandy]

Hmm. It's all very suspicious, isn't it? Looking at his purchase history, it's very hard to see how he's doing anything other than counterfeiting. In some respects that's even worse than just selling knock-offs. I bought a set from the guy in good faith that I was getting a genuine original, if I wanted a warezed set, I wouldn't have paid that much!

 

[ChrisUnionNJ]

Hmm. It's all very suspicious, isn't it? Looking at his purchase history, it's very hard to see how he's doing anything other than counterfeiting. In some respects that's even worse than just selling knock-offs. I bought a set from the guy in good faith that I was getting a genuine original, if I wanted a warezed set, I wouldn't have paid that much!

Hey andy if it has a sticker the length of the chip or a dot sticker it's fake also the dent in the middle shood tell ya something..lol

If it was not for my C128 days I would have had no clue about eprom's..

I got one for my 2000 when I first got it could not find a real one at the time so I grabbed it and just hoped it worked I'm still looking for a set for
my 1200..

Chris

 

[PymerOne]

Dear All,

slightly offtopic:
-is a copied 3.1 rom in your house legal if you own a legal 3.1 rom also?
-is your copied 3.1 rom legal if you own a cloanto Amiga forever cdrom?

Grtz, PymerOne

 

[fitzsteve]

Dear All,

slightly offtopic:
-is a copied 3.1 rom in your house legal if you own a legal 3.1 rom also?
-is your copied 3.1 rom legal if you own a cloanto Amiga forever cdrom?

Grtz, PymerOne

Probably not from a legal stand point, (unless it was just backup for the legit one you were not using) i.e for safe keeping.

However - I don't think the police are going to come and bang on your door for a bootleg 3.1 rom lol, you can feel a lot less guilty about it though if you own Amigaforever or a genuine Rom/s.

Steve.

 

[salaxi54]

I once purchased from this seller, and i believe not all his products are legit..
To make things clear, i doubt either C=, Escom, or AT ever sold a single-chip 1.3/3.1 ROM with soldered selection switch on it...
I was actually expecting some sort of a small pcb, but instead got what i described. (that was for the A2000)
Now, as about the floppy colors, that can be discussed all day long!
My first Amiga OS (1.0) and second update (1.1) both came on sets of black floppies, and no doubt about originality back in 86, plus they were in the A1000's box, sealed.
My second Amiga, an A600HD came with a 2.04 set of floppies that were white.
A friend of mine bought his first A2000 with 1.3 and the floppies were blue.
Color doesn't seem to mean anything to me..

 

[Merlin]

AFAIK, Commodore never used UV erasable EPROMS for Kickstart ROM chips. All of the Kickstart ROMs I have in my Amigas are programmed EPROMs of the non-UV type, most likely EEPROMS, with the protect fuse blown.

If anyone can prove differently, I'd like to see the evidence.

 

[Zetr0]

@Thread

As far as I know, the Workbench disks I have all come from A1200 Packs, most are blue, the black I believe are provided by Escom, White / Grey came from packs after Commodore - between Gateway and Escom ownership.

I believe that Power Computing where the only Licensed distributors that provided an UV-EPROM, however AmigaKit would know 100% of that.

In fact, AmigaKit would be able to confirm all of the above - so it might be wise to ask them.

@PymerOne

Dear All,

slightly offtopic:
-is a copied 3.1 rom in your house legal if you own a legal 3.1 rom also?

Yes, you are allowed to backup to protect the software that you own, even on firmware. However this is not an express right to use this alongside existing software.

so legally, in regards to accepted copyright, one of them would need to be in a box and not used.

-is your copied 3.1 rom legal if you own a cloanto Amiga forever cdrom?

Grtz, PymerOne

This is a grey area, as they are NOT the same software, so arguably I would say NO, however you are afforded the right to backup the CD media.

Its interesting to know that the ROM's on Cloanto's CD are modified so that direct transposition to a programmable chip will result in non-working firmware. I should also point out the Workbench disks on the compilation are also altered from the original releases.


Arguably, in the case of IP/Copyright infringement - the only people that can take this matter further are current license holders, this includes those that have a license of distribution such like Cloanto and perhaps Amigakit. In the long run it is the license holders that need to press the matter in a civil court, this can involve a lot of money in legal fee's.

However, if these items are illegitimate copies made to look original - then this is a matter of fraud, not copyright infringement, as such would be dealt within a criminal court not a civil one. If one is so inclined to do so you can report a case of fraud to the police as a conscientious citizen.