Its an eBay christmas again

Once again I am ploughing the depths of eBay looking for xmas pressies for my loved ones, cheapskate that I am.

The two bears for the not-so children, children are bid for, won, paid for and hopefully winging their way from the bear maker in Scotland - I always buy them a hand made teddy bear each at xmas, no I don't know why, but its a tradition that I started when they were young and I will do it until I take my last breath despite my wife thinking I've lost my marbles every xmas, well for most of the year actually but thats her problem - they are now 18 and 14 and open their bear presents every year with a "we know what this is" look but they'll miss them when I'm gone - or put them on eBay more like.

And while browsing last night I glanced upon the dvd section, something that I haven't bothered with for a couple of years since I bought a badly pirated copy of Bruce Springsteen Unplugged, it wasn't so much the fact that it was a bad pirate copy as that fact that it was a bad gig from the late eighties with all of the big hair and "showsuits" that went with it, frankly it woul dhave been a crap purchase even if it had been a genuine copy, especially if it was a genuine copy.

But last night my eye was caught by something that I want - a six dvd set of all of Will Hay's films.

Will Who ?

Will Hay, a British comedy genius of the 1930's, and I can have every film he ever made (about 18 of them) for just £8.

Yes they will be copied, in fact the seller specialises in selling duplicated/copied dvd films, he admits it in his eBay advertising and yet eBay do not strike him off their books - why ?

Because the films that he is selling are all now in the public domain, the copyright has expired and has not been claimed or purchased by anyone else, it is apparently quite legal to sell off any images inthe public domain as if they were your own.

No I'm still not convinced either, but eBay seem to be, so this morning I will order my Will Hay boxed set and I may also be tempted to order the £20 boxed set of every single episode of Bilko that was ever made - its now over 50 years old and again is allegedly in the public domain - thats good enough for me.

So thats two cheap xmas presents for the wife then, as a woman she of course has no sense of humour and so will throw them across the room at me while I plead "its the thought that counts" whilst rubbing my hands with glee at my all too subtle subterfuge (it works every time).