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Posted By: Max Weder

Many sports athletes attempt to protect their intellectual property through "right of publicity" statutes or common law decisions.

What I find puzzling in ebay's case here is that if Jackson signed the ball, either for a fee or for free, I'm not sure what statutory right he would have to prevent resale of the ball. The ebay VeRo link states that ebay's protection is for the protection of unauthorized use of the intellectual property owner's rights. Ebay suggests that an item an owner wishes to remove is likely unauthorized but it "helpfully" adds that the owner of the right doesn't have to offer a reason; in this case, it may be that reggiejackson.com wishes to eliminate the competition. This would seem to be an inappropriate use by Reggie, but I will leave it to others qualified in this area to comment.

So far, it looks like Mr. October is the only baseball player registered: http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/vero-aboutme.html#sports

Max