• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, November 3, 2008

Frustrated by eBay's and Yahoo's alleged failure to stop unauthorized sales of his designs, a clip art vendor has sued the Web sites for copyright infringement.

David Hendricks, who runs the Sedro Woolley, Wash.-based Clipart Design USA, alleges that two other individuals are selling bootlegs of his images at eBay's online store and at a Web site hosted by Yahoo. In a complaint filed in federal district court in Washington state, Hendricks is asking for an injunction against the Web companies, and that he recover any profit made from the sale of his designs. But he isn't seeking monetary damages for the alleged copyright infringement, which federal law sets at between $750 and $30,000 per violation.

Hendricks alleges that he previously informed eBay and Yahoo that the other vendors did not have a license to sell his "vector images," or computer-designed images that are used by t-shirt designers, glass etching businesses and other graphic designers. He also alleges that eBay at one point "permanently banned" one of the sellers, but that the vendor continued to offer Hendricks' images at the online auction site.

The complaint asserts that both eBay and Yahoo are "continuing to materially assist and provide infrastructure to (the vendors) which make possible the infringing activity."

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act generally provides Web sites a "safe harbor" from liability for copyright infringement based on the activities of users, provided that the sites remove pirated material at the request of the owner. But a little tested portion of the statute appears to allow courts to issue injunctions against Web sites even if they qualify for the safe harbors.

Hendricks' unusual decision not to seek copyright infringement damages could prove useful strategically if his main goal is stopping the sale of his designs by other vendors, said Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University. "Asking for just an injunction here struck me as a pretty savvy way of getting their attention without threatening them," he said.

Yahoo and eBay did not respond to requests for comment.