Ebay or not Ebay, that is the question.
Aracos79
Ok, so using your analogy eBay'ers = emulators and ANet = Sony. And the emulators won. So... any way you slice it, the legal "fuzziness" used by the eBay'ers is sufficient to continue with their business. ANet simply doesn't have the resources to force them to court and potentially make their "cost of doing business" too high to continue.
Sagius Truthbarron
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Originally Posted by Diomedes
Years ago, a bunch of Playstation 1 emulators came out for PCs. Sony immediately started suing the heck out of the different companies. The courts ruled in favor of the emulator companies, but the emulators went away anyhow. Why? They went bankrupt fighting the legal fees. Sony continued to threaten any other emulator makers and, surprise surprise, the emulator market vanished.
I think what needs to be taken into account is that when AreaNet came up with a business model, it didn't include XXX funds to be spent each year in legal fees suing a farmer just so that another one could pop up 2 days later. -Diomedes |
Besides, you are saying that no one should be able to take a cut of the profits that they rightly earned just becuase they "SEEM" to be leaching off the larger company?
You are also saying that extortion and destruction of small businesses is a good thing becuase their line of work appears to be undignified, then?
berko
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Originally Posted by Sagius Truthbarron
This is completely legal. They want money for the time spent collecting it; not selling actual property, but time.
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Sagius Truthbarron
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Originally Posted by berko
What time are we talking about here, if they're using bots to do their work as they continue on with their normal lives. I don't see any time being used by them since they aren't doing anything except for starting the game up and leaving their computer on.
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Orochim4ru
They aren't selling time, they're selling money that belongs to someone else. Their legal "defence" is bullshit.
Aracos79
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Originally Posted by Orochim4ru
They aren't selling time, they're selling money that belongs to someone else. Their legal "defence" is bullshit.
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dargon
Is it legal according to the EULA? Depends on how you interpret the EULA and what the sellers state. The sellers say they aren't selling gold, they are selling time and thus they take advantage of a loophole in the EULA. That said, if I give $$$ to someone who's selling time, then I want to see my watch run backwards and my dirty dishes suddenly become clean again. To bad they just give gold, so what they say they're selling and what you actually get are tow different things, and IMO constitutes fraud. However since everyone knows they are lying about what they are selling and infact wants what they actually give and not what they say they are giving, nobody seeks any legal repercussions against them.
SOT
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Originally Posted by Chev of Hardass
Wow, no one picked up on how ignorant this post is?
The reason gold is worthless, is because everyone has it and can get it for cheap. |
Reality or the game, pick one and embrace it.
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Originally Posted by Xellos
Because if you farm for like a week, or if you win HoH for a week, you can have more gold then you'll ever need? I mean, I've bought about ten or so 15k ascenscion armours, and I still got 600k gold just from 2 weeks of sigil hunting. What would I need gold for? Arrows?
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Asplode
Well this is obviously a simple case of letter and spirit of the law, or rather in this case, the EULA. It's this "time and effort" BS that undermines and defies what ANet's desires are.
ANet doesn't WANT you to farm gold and sell it on ebay, but not all the legalese in the world can prevent someone from doing what they want, they just twist the words and conditions.
Think of it from a simplistic viewpoint: Whether you're selling your time, or selling intellectual property, the fact of the matter is that you're paying someone real money, and as a consequence recieving gold in-game.
ANet doesn't WANT you to farm gold and sell it on ebay, but not all the legalese in the world can prevent someone from doing what they want, they just twist the words and conditions.
Think of it from a simplistic viewpoint: Whether you're selling your time, or selling intellectual property, the fact of the matter is that you're paying someone real money, and as a consequence recieving gold in-game.
Aracos79
The law is kinda funny that way, especially in this country (USA). In many situations, if the law does not EXPLICITLY forbid you from doing a thing, then you can do it. It might be silly, it might be blatently against the SPIRIT of the law, but without a concrete exclusion, you have to allow it. Can you go back and change the law? Of course. Can the courts INTERPRET the law in such a way as to make your activity illegal? You better believe it. But until either of those two things happens, you are usually in the clear.
Lorelei
The argument of selling time doesn't hold water.
There are objects of transactions here: real money issued by government (US government in this case) in exchange for in game money. No time was exchanged.
It may be different if the person was hired to play the game. In which case, the purchaser would have to provide the means for the hired person to "produce". Which means the purchaser would have to provide the seller his account to play with, and after a certain amount of time, get back the character, plus (or minus) whatever is collected (or deducted) from it during the said "hired" time.
I would call on:
- the IRS for them to evade reporting wage revenue (since they claim they sell time, not items);
- the INS for not checking I-9 form and eligibility of employment.
These are serious crime people. You could be jailed if infringe those laws, much more so than civil suits by ANet.
There are objects of transactions here: real money issued by government (US government in this case) in exchange for in game money. No time was exchanged.
It may be different if the person was hired to play the game. In which case, the purchaser would have to provide the means for the hired person to "produce". Which means the purchaser would have to provide the seller his account to play with, and after a certain amount of time, get back the character, plus (or minus) whatever is collected (or deducted) from it during the said "hired" time.
I would call on:
- the IRS for them to evade reporting wage revenue (since they claim they sell time, not items);
- the INS for not checking I-9 form and eligibility of employment.
These are serious crime people. You could be jailed if infringe those laws, much more so than civil suits by ANet.
Mimi Miyagi
A guy I know spent real cash to buy 300-400K in GW gold. Funny part is, he still has it. He's given away some of it to folks that needed a quick 20-30K, but otherwise, he hasn't spent a dime of it.
Why? Because he doesn't need to. Why did he buy it? Because it saved him from having to farm, he is too busy (and lazy) to do it himself. He also has a lot of disposable cash, so spending the money didn't bother him.
But the funny thing is, he hasn't ever had to farm regardless.
There isn't a single thing in GW that you absolutely must have to become some sort of uber player. Nothing. The ridiculous amounts of gold being traded for items is silly, and just reinforces the fact that regardless of how "broken" the economy is, or seems to be, items are over valued, and gold is virtually worthless if people are stupid enough to toss around 500K on a sword that is no better than an item you can pick up off the ground doing a mission. If people can spend that amount of money, then money appears to be no object. One sigil, one nice item, can give a player enough gold to not have to worry about gold - and opens the door for spending freely.
I'm a perfect example of a casual player. I lucked out and had both a superior vigor and a superior absorption rune drop - and those two runes allowed me to have more gold than I ever had before. But once you have that big pile of gold, you'll realize there isn't anything in the game that will make you better. I always scoffed at the fools that wasted 100K on the 15K armor - until I had so much gold that I realized that there wasn't anything else to do with it. Need to spend 20K on a weapon mod? Big deal. Want a guild hall? No problem. Dye your armor all black? So what? What else are you going to do with all that gold?
The only really bad thing about the economy (and MMORPG games in general) is the real industry of sweat shop labor that pays peanuts to little asian kiddies to farm items - and the resultant lag the servers will experience due to excessive botting and exploits. No one recalls the massive lag Diablo 2 had during those massive duping periods a few years ago? Just wait until the first major duping exploit comes along and crashes the servers. It's not a question of if, but a question of when.
Why? Because he doesn't need to. Why did he buy it? Because it saved him from having to farm, he is too busy (and lazy) to do it himself. He also has a lot of disposable cash, so spending the money didn't bother him.
But the funny thing is, he hasn't ever had to farm regardless.
There isn't a single thing in GW that you absolutely must have to become some sort of uber player. Nothing. The ridiculous amounts of gold being traded for items is silly, and just reinforces the fact that regardless of how "broken" the economy is, or seems to be, items are over valued, and gold is virtually worthless if people are stupid enough to toss around 500K on a sword that is no better than an item you can pick up off the ground doing a mission. If people can spend that amount of money, then money appears to be no object. One sigil, one nice item, can give a player enough gold to not have to worry about gold - and opens the door for spending freely.
I'm a perfect example of a casual player. I lucked out and had both a superior vigor and a superior absorption rune drop - and those two runes allowed me to have more gold than I ever had before. But once you have that big pile of gold, you'll realize there isn't anything in the game that will make you better. I always scoffed at the fools that wasted 100K on the 15K armor - until I had so much gold that I realized that there wasn't anything else to do with it. Need to spend 20K on a weapon mod? Big deal. Want a guild hall? No problem. Dye your armor all black? So what? What else are you going to do with all that gold?
The only really bad thing about the economy (and MMORPG games in general) is the real industry of sweat shop labor that pays peanuts to little asian kiddies to farm items - and the resultant lag the servers will experience due to excessive botting and exploits. No one recalls the massive lag Diablo 2 had during those massive duping periods a few years ago? Just wait until the first major duping exploit comes along and crashes the servers. It's not a question of if, but a question of when.
Anarkii
There was already a long thread about ebaying here recently. You should have seen that before starting another one.
Its not. ANet will lose if they sue. Sony realised that and started Station Xchange, to profit from this secondary market.
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Originally Posted by Orochim4ru
They aren't selling time, they're selling money that belongs to someone else. Their legal "defence" is bullshit.
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Red Sonya
I've often said in every mmorpg the best way to stop ebayers is to make everything no drop or personal only. No 'player' economy, no trading goods between players, you can buy and sell items with npc merchants only but not sell them or trade anything between players. That eleminates it all. What you get is what you get and you get nothing else but what you 'earn'. Without being able to transfer gold or items, there will be no ebay for gold or items. The only thing would be accounts and most people won't buy characters as easily as they would buy gold or items off ebay.
This would also allow the developers to actually set an economy, decide how much things should sell for and cost. There would never be any problems with the economy then. They could still have a fluctuating economy that players could play with competitively causing prices to go up or down by how much was sold to the merchants. But, there sure would never be any ebayers selling anything but characters and that's a lot easier to trace than the transactions of items and coins. So they can catch them and then ban the accounts.
But, no one has tried it yet, everyone of them open the doors to ebayers and then make a silly EULA they don't even enforce and ebayers for everyone of them pop up every single game and ruin every single games economy.
This would also allow the developers to actually set an economy, decide how much things should sell for and cost. There would never be any problems with the economy then. They could still have a fluctuating economy that players could play with competitively causing prices to go up or down by how much was sold to the merchants. But, there sure would never be any ebayers selling anything but characters and that's a lot easier to trace than the transactions of items and coins. So they can catch them and then ban the accounts.
But, no one has tried it yet, everyone of them open the doors to ebayers and then make a silly EULA they don't even enforce and ebayers for everyone of them pop up every single game and ruin every single games economy.
Stev0
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Originally Posted by Thanato
its kind of hard to go after the people themselves, since they're selling the "time they put into aquiring the gold" and not the gold itself. the best they can do is have ebay shut down those auctions
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Aracos79
eBay is not going to police this issue itself. Why should they? They make a profit on every auction. They aren't going to close them unless legally compelled to do so. No company can knowingly be involved in illegal activity. Put 2 and 2 together. eBay won't close the auctions unless it has to. It hasn't. The auctions are therefore legal enough to keep going.
Divinitys Creature
You know these cases have been tried in court and the sellers have been vindicated that they may sell their time - it is theirs to sell. So it's not just people here saying it is not illegal, it has been ruled in court. All ANET can do is ban your account for not conforming to the EULA and nothing more.
For the record I don't advocate these services at all.
For the record I don't advocate these services at all.
Stev0
This is what really is going on when you buy from ebay and the like.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=40543
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=40543
Sparrow_Lin
if they are paying for the 'time' then they should be getting a slip of pape with the word 'time' on it and not get any gold, because they arn't paying for the gold apparantly.
Nash
Judging by the items being sold, the text about them, and the fact that the items only exist in a game, I must conclude that anyone who buys and sells items on eBay is a retard.
Phades
If paying for the time was acceptable, then all mmo's would be indirectly paying the playerbase instead of the playerbase paying their companies from all the artificial resource gathering that occurs. You could also factor in some kind of bonuses or incentives for people that actually help to improve gameplay.
Essentially, the whole "time" for "money" is a legal loophole. The people using this have no real time invested. The bottom line is that they are still making money off of another companies' intellectual property (you know the thing that the music/movie industry is fighting over right now). If anything the trade of such items devalues the income of the MMO game providers in the exact same way that piracy does, detracting from their direct income by allowing users to bypass various time sinks intended to keep them in the game to collect their monthly fees.
The entire sistuation is a byprodcut of the apathy society has created. This is very similar to the current stance of having the government protect our children instead of the parents. This is while at the same time not making legislature to support the parents of said children to ensure that they are being influenced in the proper way. What is happening instead is just ignoring the issue that the modern day family is more busy and splintered, looking for other ways to pass off the social learning needs away from the family and being forced upon the government.
Essentially, the whole "time" for "money" is a legal loophole. The people using this have no real time invested. The bottom line is that they are still making money off of another companies' intellectual property (you know the thing that the music/movie industry is fighting over right now). If anything the trade of such items devalues the income of the MMO game providers in the exact same way that piracy does, detracting from their direct income by allowing users to bypass various time sinks intended to keep them in the game to collect their monthly fees.
The entire sistuation is a byprodcut of the apathy society has created. This is very similar to the current stance of having the government protect our children instead of the parents. This is while at the same time not making legislature to support the parents of said children to ensure that they are being influenced in the proper way. What is happening instead is just ignoring the issue that the modern day family is more busy and splintered, looking for other ways to pass off the social learning needs away from the family and being forced upon the government.
Teh Azman
Considering many of them are bots, no it's not time. And if you believe that you can really claim to be selling time and not look like a complete idiot...
...Then i guess I can believe that you will die alone.
...Then i guess I can believe that you will die alone.
Kishin
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Originally Posted by Xellos
And you know, as funny as your trying to make their arguements look stupid, your using the exact same tactic.
So now it's "LOOK AT ME I R SMARTER THAN PPL WHO THINK THEY R SMARTER THAN THE LAW HAHA I PWNED THESE LEWZORZ" |
I just drown kittens.
Somhairle Isis
What if (stick with me here) those people selling that crap are actually ANet employees? I mean...who else has the ability to find rare @ss weapons? Perhaps they are ANet employees making up for the fact that GW isn't pay to play?
/conspiracy
/conspiracy
Kaylynn Of Ascalon
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Originally Posted by Xellos
Because if you farm for like a week, or if you win HoH for a week, you can have more gold then you'll ever need? I mean, I've bought about ten or so 15k ascenscion armours, and I still got 600k gold just from 2 weeks of sigil hunting. What would I need gold for? Arrows?
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so everyone should follow your plan so that they too will not care about gold?
I for one don't farm. It takes me forever to get any real amount of gold up to buy what I need. GOLD is worth something to me damnit. I have right now 23k and thats because I'm pulling all my funds together from 3 different chars and because I have made a few nice sells. besides that I get gold slowly. I don't want to waste my time farming. BORING. i want to play the game, the missions, the quests...by doing this you will not build up 100's of thousands of gold any time soon. 600K shit I can't imagine having that kind of gold. i see its easy for you to say gold is worthless. you have all of it!!! people that have tons of it don't care...its the people like me that struggle to get gold that care. so stfu.
Aracos79
Folks this is not about the reality of the situation. All that matters is legality. Are a lot of eBay sellers botters? Highly likely. Are they really selling their time? Of course not. Does the way they phrase things allow them to "get away with it"? Yep. And that's all that matters. We can call them all the names that we want, but the fact of the matter is they are in the clear to do what they do. ANet can try to ban their accounts, but that's it.
Makkert
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Originally Posted by Xellos
Because if you farm for like a week, or if you win HoH for a week, you can have more gold then you'll ever need? I mean, I've bought about ten or so 15k ascenscion armours, and I still got 600k gold just from 2 weeks of sigil hunting. What would I need gold for? Arrows?
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Good one. Now THAT would be a moneysink for sure :P
Aracos79
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Makkert
This one got me started.
Good one. Now THAT would be a moneysink for sure :P |
Dax
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Kaylynn Of Ascalon
so everyone should follow your plan so that they too will not care about gold?
I for one don't farm. It takes me forever to get any real amount of gold up to buy what I need. GOLD is worth something to me damnit. I have right now 23k and thats because I'm pulling all my funds together from 3 different chars and because I have made a few nice sells. besides that I get gold slowly. I don't want to waste my time farming. BORING. i want to play the game, the missions, the quests...by doing this you will not build up 100's of thousands of gold any time soon. 600K shit I can't imagine having that kind of gold. i see its easy for you to say gold is worthless. you have all of it!!! people that have tons of it don't care...its the people like me that struggle to get gold that care. so stfu. |
Just out of curiosity what's stopping you from doing missions and quests, farming? To play through PvE, you really don't need thatmuch gold.
Come to think of it you really don't need alot of things in this game.
Myth Osis
Let me just say .... Time is not a Tradable commodity.
That is to pay some one for thier time. You are not "Paying for thier time" as such but are paying for their services.
That is ......
You dont pay a builder the time it takes to build a house. You pay him for his labour to build a house, this may be gaugued by time, but is not the time itself.
So you are not paying for their time, however you are paying for thier services. As you are paying for thier services they are in business and they should be paying tax. This is why most sweetshops are ilegal, as they dont pay tax. Well that and they probably pay less than the min wage.
As for the one off ebays.
Good luck A-Net.
That is to pay some one for thier time. You are not "Paying for thier time" as such but are paying for their services.
That is ......
You dont pay a builder the time it takes to build a house. You pay him for his labour to build a house, this may be gaugued by time, but is not the time itself.
So you are not paying for their time, however you are paying for thier services. As you are paying for thier services they are in business and they should be paying tax. This is why most sweetshops are ilegal, as they dont pay tax. Well that and they probably pay less than the min wage.
As for the one off ebays.
Good luck A-Net.
Spark
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Let me just say .... Time is not a Tradable commodity. That is to pay some one for thier time. You are not "Paying for thier time" as such but are paying for their services. That is ...... You dont pay a builder the time it takes to build a house. You pay him for his labour to build a house, this may be gaugued by time, but is not the time itself. |
Phades
Computer code doesnt build anything on its own, or are you suggesting we give real money to a non-entity, since that is the time and service that is being used. Applying that logic to the real world roughly equates out to slavery and theft. You can apply the metephor however you desire.
coolsti
I guess there are many different ways to get enjoyments out of games like this, but I for one cannot see the point of obtaining any kind of skill or item if I didn't "earn" it within the game. Its such a joy to finally find something or finally get up to a higher level. What's the point of buying it instead?
I actually dread the day that my character has maxed out to level 20 and has excellant armor and weapons. Because that's the day I probably will start all over again with a new character or stop playing.
But perhaps its just me. I play at my own pace, I avoid gifts from other players (like from guild members), I don't intend to be run to a location I can't get to with a group similar to my level, and so far I haven't looked to purchase anything from any non-AI players (that includes bots ;-)
I actually dread the day that my character has maxed out to level 20 and has excellant armor and weapons. Because that's the day I probably will start all over again with a new character or stop playing.
But perhaps its just me. I play at my own pace, I avoid gifts from other players (like from guild members), I don't intend to be run to a location I can't get to with a group similar to my level, and so far I haven't looked to purchase anything from any non-AI players (that includes bots ;-)
ShinJin Kahn
You know, it's easy to say money is worthless when you have 600k in stoarge, and about 500 gold everythings, it's no so easy to say when your struggling through the game not able to buy new armour or a better weapon then the one you found on the floor in old ascalon.
ALOT of the rich people just dont see what the poor are trying to say, which just shows ignorance.
I've had the chance to see both sides in a very short time span, so i have a good understanding of what it's like to not even be able to afford that basics (id kit, armour) to having more money then you know what to do with (3 sets of 15k armour, sup vig and absorp on each, 3 totally maxed out gold weapons 15>50,10/10 5/1).
When you know good farming spots, and know how to buy and sell it's easy, but thats how it is with all things in life, when you know, it's simple, when you dont, it's dreadfull, the rich people need to try and understand that.
ALOT of the rich people just dont see what the poor are trying to say, which just shows ignorance.
I've had the chance to see both sides in a very short time span, so i have a good understanding of what it's like to not even be able to afford that basics (id kit, armour) to having more money then you know what to do with (3 sets of 15k armour, sup vig and absorp on each, 3 totally maxed out gold weapons 15>50,10/10 5/1).
When you know good farming spots, and know how to buy and sell it's easy, but thats how it is with all things in life, when you know, it's simple, when you dont, it's dreadfull, the rich people need to try and understand that.
Obsiedion
The bottom line is this, People want to waste their Real hard earned cash because they are too lazy to earn it in game, let um. The risks are ofcourse obvious. Its a breach of ANets code, and probably most peoples moral ethics, but Jeez.
REAL CASH FOR FAKE CASH? see in the real world it would be a legal mine field. But hey its not the real world, and dont forget supply and demand. Nutshell analysis...
Stupid people + too much cash = greedy people with lots of cash.
REAL CASH FOR FAKE CASH? see in the real world it would be a legal mine field. But hey its not the real world, and dont forget supply and demand. Nutshell analysis...
Stupid people + too much cash = greedy people with lots of cash.
Santanus_Perro
The only way to get rid of "cash for gold" on eBay is to police players who get a huge influx of cash and investigate it. If no one is buying, these "cash for gold" auctions will go away.
Aniewiel
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Originally Posted by Santanus_Perro
The only way to get rid of "cash for gold" on eBay is to police players who get a huge influx of cash and investigate it. If no one is buying, these "cash for gold" auctions will go away.
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The only way to do it would be to look for transactions between known gold-seller accounts and users.
noblepaladin
It is legal to buy the gold because you are buying their time, in the sense that you won't go to jail for it and nobody will be able to successfully sue over it.
It is also legal for A.Net to delete your account if they feel like it and not give you an explaination at all, as agreed on the EULA. You can't do anything about it.
Everything can be simplifed further: If A.Net finds out you brought gold, they will delete your account. The choice of what to do is up to you.
It is also legal for A.Net to delete your account if they feel like it and not give you an explaination at all, as agreed on the EULA. You can't do anything about it.
Everything can be simplifed further: If A.Net finds out you brought gold, they will delete your account. The choice of what to do is up to you.
Damon Windwalker
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Originally Posted by fubar121
Ok so they are selling there time. But you get the GOLD which is as i read it still property of anet. Anyone a lawyer? want to clarifiy the eula? about selling the time spent getting gold. I not a legal smart person but as far i can see the gold is still property of anet is it not?
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Nokomis
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Originally Posted by Thanato
its kind of hard to go after the people themselves, since they're selling the "time they put into aquiring the gold" and not the gold itself. the best they can do is have ebay shut down those auctions
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If these people are selling their time and effort, are their profits not subject to income tax?
--Nokomis