Does everyone else see what I see? That big freaking bolded-no-less disclaimer right below the picture that says this:

While we used officially licensed Disney Princess materials to create this item, we are not affiliated with Disney Princess in any way, shape, or form. This is a handmade item.

Let me just repeat that (in case the slow learning Disney lawyers are reading this *waving HI* to my new best friends, have you ever heard of the Stupidity Awards, BTW? I am thinking about nominating you. I think you are a shoe in!). It reads "WE USED OFFICIALLY LICENSED DISNEY PRINCESS MATERIAL. What part do you think the Disney lawyers mis-understood or did they not even READ the listing and disclaimer before hitting that little VeRo button?

Nonetheless, they decided to remove 23 of my listings, then eBay decided to jump on the bandwagon (why not right?) and send me this charming email, in which they slap me with a violation notice for copyright infringement, on one of the same listings Disney VeRoed. Yes, you read that right. Disney VeRoed me and eBay slapped me with a violation of their own (we'll get back to this subject later).

Next, the unthinkable happened. eBay Narued my account, not a listing limitation, a full blown see-you-later NARU. Take a moment to read the suspension notice here.

As you can see eBay states "We suspended your account after carefully considering each violation and verifying that the correct action was taken.". I find myself extremely perplexed by this statement for a couple of reasons. First, this all happened within a matter of minutes so how could anyone possibly have 'carefully considered' anything and Second, how on earth can eBay make a legal determination on whether or not I am infringing? Is it even their place? Aren't they just a venue? Shouldn't have eBay just removed the items in question at Disney's request and let me and Disney battle it out? Why did eBay side with Disney without any input from me and within minutes of the VeRo takedown? Lots of questions here, something simply is not right!

So, I jumped into action immediately and emailed my friend and inspiration, Karen of www.tabberone.com, who has courageously battled numerous VeRo members. I also emailed Disney at the email provided in the VeRo notice asking them for an exact reason for the takedown. Well, Disney slyly had on an auto-responder that night and I received a non-sensical reply. This simply infuriated me. So I decided to track down the Disney Legal Team using google and yellowbook.com.

In the meantime, Karen emailed me back and explained that Disney had done the same thing to her in 2003. She filed a lawsuit against Disney, which led to a settlement agreement between Tabberone and Disney. Karen was kind enough to give me a link to the settlement agreement:

http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/DisneyLawsuit/agreement.html

Whoa! Did you read what I just read? Disney, Disney, Disney, you are such a bad little mouse. In that settlement agreement (which is only binding between Disney and Tabberone) you clearly agree that she is allowed to make handmade items out of licensed fabric. So why are you VeRoing me? Did you have a blonde moment?

Armed with this *great* new information and a big smirk on my face, I call the Disney Legal team and spoke with Travis, who puts me through to Rushne (such a pretty name, eh?). I explain to her that I was just VeRoed and Narued. I demanded to speak with whoever was in charge of this fiasco and demanded that my listings be reinstated immediatly. Since she is not a lawyer and just their assistant she was unable to help me, but promised to have the lawyer in charge call me back in 30 minutes when he was due back in the office. Fine.

I wait exaclty 35 minutes and can you guess what happened? No phone call. Huge surprise, I know. After dealing with the Boras Corporation and Ralph Lauren, I knew very well that the lawyer would try to ignore me. What he didn't know is I am very tenacious and will make a pest out of myself until things are resolved ... and uh, no, I will not wait hours or even days to resolve an issue that should never have occured in the first place.

So, I call Travis back, who transfers me to Rushne again. She tells me that she did speak with the lawyer (whose name and phone number she was not allowed to give me) and he would call me back in the morning. HA! I think not. At this point, I explained to Rushne that I was making my items from licensed fabric/paper and had the settlement agreement between Tabberone and Disney, along with a plethora of documented legal cases, specifically Prescious Moments v. La Infantil. I was Naured, the eBay side of my business shut down, my good name being harmed and I was NOT going to wait until morning.

I told her that if the lawyer did not call me back in 20 minutes, I would be down at the John Joseph Moakley U. S. Courthouse at 9am the next morning filing a case against Disney seeking relief as well as monetary compensation for the damage being done to my business. She kindly took the message and we hung up.

Ten minutes later Rushne called me back and explained she had spoken with the lawyer and he sent eBay an email to reinstate my listings. Here is the email:

Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 5:58 PM

To: 'eBay Customer Support'

Subject: Reinstate items taken down on eBay seller "owen*and*emma today

Importance: High

Dear Verobay,

This is to request you to kindly reinstate the 23 items removed via the Verotool today on the above seller and advise us when the process is completed.

Thanks and regards,

Antipiracy Group, Corporate Legal
The Walt Disney Company
500 South Buena Vista Street
Burbank, California 91521-0527

So, exactly 2 hours to the minute, I had Disney back off of their assertation that I was infringing. VICTORY! *woot woot - shake your booty*. BTW, did you see that "Importance: High"? Damn right Disney!

My eBay account was restored 16 hours later, along with all the listings that were terminated. I re-oped my store and was delighted to find that my storefront, storepages, and categories were still intact. Of course I would need to re-list all my items, but at least the infrastructure was still there, for this I am grateful! I am also appreciative that eBay acted so quickly to correct the wrong that was done. I am still VERY concerned about the violation notice that they sent me and I plan to follow up on that to see why that occured.

I beg all of you who have been VeRoed by Disney for the same reason to pick up the phone and demand to be made whole. It is not OK for Disney to behave like this. It is not OK for Disney to compeltely disregard the law and try to bully small sellers with false claims of "infringement". It is not OK for Disney to wield false power on eBay.

By all means, I applaud Disney for going after the true counterfiters. I encourage them to stop bullying, stop threatening, and stop trying to shape the eBay marketplace with false claims. Perhaps they should think about stopping the true counterfitters, you know, the ones located in China making tons of cheap knock-offs, but I suppose bullying stay-at0home mommies is much more fun *rolls eyes*.

Finally, we give Disney TWO THUMBS DOWN for their deplorable actions that resulted in me losing a good nights sleep, suffering through 18 hours of naru status, and for annoying me beyond belief. Bad, bad mouse!