HAVE EBAY BEEN DUPED?

As the Live 8 Edinburgh ticket distribution process follows the general trend of going ass-in-the-air, and ticket winners find themselves unable to claim their prize (some confusion between capital and lowercase letters, we're led to believe), tickets for the event have popped up on Ebay, and just as quickly been taken down again.

But why are Ebay doing what Bob has told them? Because, it seems, they've been misled:

On Thursday eBay said Live 8 ticket bids were being removed as soon as they were noticed onsite, a policy it applied to all Live 8 gigs.

"We believe people do have the right to buy and sell items as they choose," an eBay spokesman said. "We made an exception to our policy on the occasion of this unique, charitable concert."

But as Bob has said repeatedly elsewhere, Live 8 isn't a charitable concert - indeed, unless you count the money being given to the Princes Trust to persuade them not to be in Hyde Park on Saturday week, not a penny will find its way to any good cause at all. Bob keeps saying it's not a charity gig - so why are Ebay using the excuse of it being a charity to ban the sale of these tickets?

More to the point, if Geldof was as smart as we're expected to believe, he'd have seized upon the Ebay sales as a positive sales point - "People are so keen to come together and be part of sending this message to the leaders of the world, they're selling their fucking grandmas to buy tickets..." - but instead it's turned into a bit of an awkward mess.

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