Beckett suing COMC

[jmscoggin]

Originally Posted by sjscout

I agree wholeheartedly.

But, this new product is the catalyst for all their actions.

Apparently they use the same dart board for business direction as they do for pricing. Maybe they are only suing COMC for $8 then. Too bad that the dart didn't land on 'sell off everything to someone with business sense and invest all of our proceeds into video rental stores'.

[MetDude]

Originally Posted by jmscoggin

My point is abandon the marketplace all together. Get rid of the headache and huge financial risk. Where is the risk in licensing? It is free money with no risk and very little overhead. Their marketplace does not work and they are now partnering with one of the worst sellers in the hobby and entering an already crowded space in a niche market. That is a recipe for a disaster and somehow they can't see it.

Abandoning the marketplace is the only way it could work.

As an idea I like it, because its better FOR ME.

When I look at it objectively
There is no way for either of us to truly know what they are earning off of marketplace vs what they feel potential earning could be, vs what they think they could make off licensing out their database. We're just guessing.

[Swipe79]

If you read about the SRP stuff that Tim has posted (mostly the video from the conference) he talks about a lot of the stuff you're not sure of.

You have to remember that the "s" in SRP stand for suggested - no one is going to hold a gun to your head and make you price it for anything other than what you want to price it at.

Originally Posted by amazingpacks

But what if i undersold? Oversold? Only 10 people ever saw the card before needing to be sold? 10,000 people needed to see the card before it was bought? listed only 1 day vs 1000 days?


While i was buying options today, i began thinking about time value and other variables involved in options and how hard it would be to set prices on options even though stocks has a huge amount of solid factual information on prices up to the current second. With cards we have less data to work with on actual sales. With stocks you can have two stocks that last sold for $10. But the exact same option will be different priced differently due to various factors like volatility,volume and other factors. With cards it will be the same. TWO $10 cards that sold today at $10 will/should have different SRP due factors like, volume, amount, days for sale,people seeing the card and other things.

Maybe i am over thinking SRP on comc. But if comc wants to try and use data to develop the most accurate "BOOK PRICE" available. Alot of other variables need to be involved. IDK

Views counter on each card would be great.

[jmscoggin]

Originally Posted by MetDude

Abandoning the marketplace is the only way it could work.

As an idea I like it, because its better FOR ME.

When I look at it objectively
There is no way for either of us to truly know what they are earning off of marketplace vs what they feel potential earning could be, vs what they think they could make off licensing out their database. We're just guessing.

Absolutely true.

[jr24ai3]

Originally Posted by SpastikMooss

Do you work for Beckett? I collect Seneca Wallace. I know he's not a hot new guy, but 5 years ago he had 151 cards on there. A few years back, he had 151. Today he has 147.

I do not work for beckett but you can see on each dealer page the number of cards sold each day. So its far from being a dead site.

Seneca Wallace has only 287 unique cards (including 1/1s, parallels, etc). Beckett has over 1/2 of them on the marketplace. Of the 287, around 40-45 are numbered to 20 or less.

COMC has 3...that's right, 3 Seneca Wallace cards on their site. Ebay shows 310, but that includes duplicates of the same card. Beckett has 147 unique items, not counting multiples from each different dealer.

[ManInTheMirror]

There are probably more than 3 Wallace cards on COMC- just that's how many is showing up right now. I know before this mess there were 2 Bo Levi Mitchell cards and I know there were some Major Applewhite cards but both players are showing 0 currently.

[jmscoggin]

Originally Posted by ManInTheMirror

There are probably more than 3 Wallace cards on COMC- just that's how many is showing up right now. I know before this mess there were 2 Bo Levi Mitchell cards and I know there were some Major Applewhite cards but both players are showing 0 currently.

Yep, believe it or not there was a Giancarlo Stanton or two a few days ago and now they show him as not even existing. I'm going to go with 'not currently a fair comparison for $200 Alex'.

[jr24ai3]

If you do a search of Griffey, you get 3229 on COMC. 7267 on beckett. My point is just that both are good sites to find cards on and to point out that the beckett marketplace is not even close to being a dead site.

[SpastikMooss]

Originally Posted by jr24ai3

I do not work for beckett but you can see on each dealer page the number of cards sold each day. So its far from being a dead site.

Seneca Wallace has only 287 unique cards (including 1/1s, parallels, etc). Beckett has over 1/2 of them on the marketplace. Of the 287, around 40-45 are numbered to 20 or less.

COMC has 3...that's right, 3 Seneca Wallace cards on their site. Ebay shows 310, but that includes duplicates of the same card. Beckett has 147 unique items, not counting multiples from each different dealer.

There are more than 3, actually at last count 110 distinct cards with multiple copies of each on COMC. Like MITM said, there's only 3 due to the site error. I keep track of Seneca Wallace cards like crazy..so trust me on this one haha.

Marketplace has 147 items, but they're not all truly unique. Some sellers use their own descriptions (or whatever it is after 2003 Ultra on page two) and a few of those are repeats. So really the difference in Beckett Marketplace and COMC's Seneca Wallace cards are very close. Beckett has maybe 130-5 truly unique, COMC has 110 unique, so Beckett has the slight plus there.

Pricing - Beckett Marketplace, my major issue with them, is that many sellers treat it like a museum, especially Burbank. There's a Seneca auto /414 that has three available on Beckett from $18.20-$20.00. Those pop up on Ebay for maybe $6, and COMC has had them for less than $10 too. Same with the double coverage Seneca/Dave Ragone dual jersey...there's one on Beckett for $9.10 that has been $9.10 for years (literally...I have it priced in an Excel file that I started in 2010...that card has been on the list since at least 2011 with no price decrease). COMC has one (I can't find it now with the data being down but it was added recently) at $4. Which is much closer to accurate pricing - I got one on Ebay for about $6 a while back.

These are just anecdotes, but in general Beckett Marketplace is "dead" because many of the sellers on there base their prices on an ineffective model (i.e. Beckett BV) instead of something accurate (like completed sales) and then they just leave their prices there. If there are sellers who adjust prices with the market that's awesome, but I haven't seen them. COMC is more fluid, I see prices decrease and the prices start out more reasonable.

So I guess my beef calling the Marketplace a dead site wasn't quite on how I truly feel about them. I'd more call them the epitome of a cardboard museum...because I'm sure some stuff sells...but it feels to me like a lot more stuff sits at high prices and never comes down in price. And stuff sits on Ebay and COMC too, that's not unique to the Beckett Marketplace...but I feel like I see more of it on the Marketplace.

[SpastikMooss]

Yeah this is kind of off topic for the thread...so *poof* lol

[checkoutmydeals]

Reports of Beckett's death are greatly exaggerated, and not actually relevant when discussing this lawsuit.

It isn't illegal to be an out-of-touch dinosaur who hasn't changed the Book Value on 99% of their cards since before Justin Bieber was born.

It isn't illegal to hire a lawyer to file a lawsuit on your behalf, even if your claim is tenuous. Since the laws are written by lawyers, I don't expect that to change any time soon.

It is illegal to infringe upon someone's intellectual property rights. Beckett claims this took place, or will take place, or might take place, or could take place, or something.

While it's true that you can't copyright a raw list of data, you can copyright original work. To the extent that Beckett's database is original, it is protected by copyright. There is plenty of original work in Beckett's database. That's why COMC has to create their own database either by looking at the actual cards, or by using a non-Beckett source which won't file a lawsuit. (For example, the American Card Catalog by Jefferson Burdick, who came up with original designations such as T206, N28 and R319).

Beckett is also claiming that their methods for deriving catalog prices are proprietary, so hopefully, COMC will come up with their own method which doesn't infringe upon this.

[SpastikMooss]

Originally Posted by checkoutmydeals

Reports of Beckett's death are greatly exaggerated, and not actually relevant when discussing this lawsuit.

It isn't illegal to be an out-of-touch dinosaur who hasn't changed the Book Value on 99% of their cards since before Justin Bieber was born.

It isn't illegal to hire a lawyer to file a lawsuit on your behalf, even if your claim is tenuous. Since the laws are written by lawyers, I don't expect that to change any time soon.

It is illegal to infringe upon someone's intellectual property rights. Beckett claims this took place, or will take place, or might take place, or could take place, or something.

While it's true that you can't copyright a raw list of data, you can copyright original work. To the extent that Beckett's database is original, it is protected by copyright. There is plenty of original work in Beckett's database. That's why COMC has to create their own database either by looking at the actual cards, or by using a non-Beckett source which won't file a lawsuit. (For example, the American Card Catalog by Jefferson Burdick, who came up with original designations such as T206, N28 and R319).

Beckett is also claiming that their methods for deriving catalog prices are proprietary, so hopefully, COMC will come up with their own method which doesn't infringe upon this.

Good point, I edited my second rant haha...I'll try to stay on topic

[sjscout]

Originally Posted by checkoutmydeals

Reports of Beckett's death are greatly exaggerated, and not actually relevant when discussing this lawsuit.

It isn't illegal to be an out-of-touch dinosaur who hasn't changed the Book Value on 99% of their cards since before Justin Bieber was born.

It isn't illegal to hire a lawyer to file a lawsuit on your behalf, even if your claim is tenuous. Since the laws are written by lawyers, I don't expect that to change any time soon.

It is illegal to infringe upon someone's intellectual property rights. Beckett claims this took place, or will take place, or might take place, or could take place, or something.

While it's true that you can't copyright a raw list of data, you can copyright original work. To the extent that Beckett's database is original, it is protected by copyright. There is plenty of original work in Beckett's database. That's why COMC has to create their own database either by looking at the actual cards, or by using a non-Beckett source which won't file a lawsuit. (For example, the American Card Catalog by Jefferson Burdick, who came up with original designations such as T206, N28 and R319).

Beckett is also claiming that their methods for deriving catalog prices are proprietary, so hopefully, COMC will come up with their own method which doesn't infringe upon this.

Very well Said!

[mrwalken]

Originally Posted by checkoutmydeals

While it's true that you can't copyright a raw list of data, you can copyright original work. To the extent that Beckett's database is original, it is protected by copyright. There is plenty of original work in Beckett's database. That's why COMC has to create their own database either by looking at the actual cards, or by using a non-Beckett source which won't file a lawsuit. (For example, the American Card Catalog by Jefferson Burdick, who came up with original designations such as T206, N28 and R319).

Beckett is alleging trade secret misappropriation, not copyright infringement. From Wikipedia, a trade secret is information that:

Is not generally known to the public;

Confers some sort of economic benefit on its holder (where this benefit must derive specifically from its not being publicly known, not just from the value of the information itself);

Is the subject of reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy.

Outside of pricing methodologies, I don't see anything in Beckett's databases that is not generally known the public. Therefore, it's not surprising that the paragraphs of the complaint that actually outline a cause of action (30-41) focus on "Beckett's secret pricing systems" as opposed to any other information contained in the databases.

[checkoutmydeals]

Honestly, I'd use Beckett Business Solutions in a second if it cost a lot less money. If I want to list 50 cards a month on eBay using BBS, I need to pay a $200 Registration Fee, plus $99 per month, plus 10% of sales Final Value Fee, plus 5 cents per item which actually sells (Success Fee), plus 3% eBay Inventory Management Fee, plus 34 cents per transaction Credit Card Fee, plus 2.75% of sales Credit Card Fee, plus eBay insertion and final value fees. Oh, and I'll have to provide my own images.

At that point, it's advantageous to upgrade to the "Deluxe" package, which is $499 per month and includes 10,000 free eBay listings per month. But if you're at that level, you might opt to go "Elite" for an additional $200 per month, which will also cross-post your items to the Beckett Marketplace. Yes, that's right. $499 per month does not get you on the Beckett Marketplace.

Those are the low and mid-priced solutions. In order to have over 50,000 items listed as I do on COMC, I'd have to upgrade to Gold, which is a steal at only $1,999 per month. If I hit the 250,000 item limit, I can upgrade to Platinum for $4,999 per month.
Oh, and every time I want to upgrade or downgrade my account, it's $100. This is just to keep the account open. If you actually manage to sell anything, then you get charged fees.

Anyway, I'd use these services in a second if they were priced differently. Like maybe $25 total for a lifetime. So it's really just a matter of cost.

[checkoutmydeals]

Beckett is alleging trade secret misappropriation, not copyright infringement.

They're claiming both.

See #2: "That license agreement explicitly prohibited COMC from using its proprietary data and copyrightable materials, including checklist and pricing data in any other manner or on any other site or printed material other than as allowed by the license agreement."

#16 "COMC initially stole Beckett data by scraping its copyrightable content - that is, its checklists and pricing data - from Beckett.com."

[mrwalken]

Originally Posted by checkoutmydeals

Beckett is alleging trade secret misappropriation, not copyright infringement.

They're claiming both.

See #2: "That license agreement explicitly prohibited COMC from using its proprietary data and copyrightable materials, including checklist and pricing data in any other manner or on any other site or printed material other than as allowed by the license agreement."

#16 "COMC initially stole Beckett data by scraping its copyrightable content - that is, its checklists and pricing data - from Beckett.com."

It's unclear to what extent they have copyrights on any of this stuff. Note the use of "copyrightable" as opposed to "copyrighted." In any event, there currently is no cause of action for copyright infringement in the complaint. If they have copyrights that they thought they could enforce, I expect they would have put them in the complaint.

[rtcrules]

Originally Posted by Chaddie84

Looking at the current state with a "glass half full" POV, I just sold cards which were described as:

2013 Topps Chrome Retail [Base] Purple Refractor #68 [Missing] #86/499
and
2013-14 Panini Prizm Red, White, & Blue Prizms #52 [Missing]

These cards SAT when they had actual descriptions. It seems the traffic is there and they are searching via unique methods and finding different stuff to snatch up.

Last night, went to bed about 1AM, got up around 11AM. in that time frame I sold around 75 low end cards, roughly 8% of my port. They are out there buying. And if your stuff is cheap they may not leave your port because its not easy to navigate.

[SpastikMooss]

Originally Posted by rtcrules

Last night, went to bed about 1AM, got up around 11AM. in that time frame I sold around 75 low end cards, roughly 8% of my port. They are out there buying. And if your stuff is cheap they may not leave your port because its not easy to navigate.

Agreed! I sold a few random things too that fit that mold. Some of my low stuff that had been sitting a while too. And I know I've been buying (though my needs are so random it's not worth catering to me lol)!

[Chaddie84]

Originally Posted by rtcrules

Last night, went to bed about 1AM, got up around 11AM. in that time frame I sold around 75 low end cards, roughly 8% of my port. They are out there buying. And if your stuff is cheap they may not leave your port because its not easy to navigate.

QFT. Every once and a while, I price out a few low-end cards in that super low range where they are at the top of the list when searching the entire site for lowest price. If drives traffic into my port and in turn sells some of the less super-low end. Worst case, I move a few cards for really cheap really fast. Best case, I move some nicer stuff also .

[SpastikMooss]

Originally Posted by Chaddie84

QFT. Every once and a while, I price out a few low-end cards in that super low range where they are at the top of the list when searching the entire site for lowest price. If drives traffic into my port and in turn sells some of the less super-low end. Worst case, I move a few cards for really cheap really fast. Best case, I move some nicer stuff also .

I do the same thing. I usually buy up 5 and 6 cent cards now and then to later try to sell them at 5 or 6 cents...always gets snagged up and usually a few other cards go too

[flagshipchromecollector]

so that's why COMC is paying collectors to help manually re-build their database.

[dcaudle68]

Did this lawsuit ever get settled?

[DaClyde]

Yes, Beckett lost.