Because tomorrow we'll all be shoving our faces with ribs and setting off fireworks, today we're covering some of our regular Friday features—like the survey. This week we asked whether eBay should be held accountable (i.e. forced to shell out) for the fake designer and luxury goods up for auction on their website. A French court said so, and is forcing them to pay $63 million, but not to the poor buyers who bought fakes (caveat emptor!)! Instead the money's going to French luxury brand Louis Vuitton, who sued eBay for allowing knock-offs to fly on the site.

Your take—or at least, the majority's opinion—was that the French court got it wrong. "Maybe LV should sue China next?" asks reader Mateo, who makes the excellent point that there's not much more eBay can do to stop the sale of fakes other than what they're already doing. Their present policy of relying on buyers and other members of the community is probably the only viable way to police the site. Here's why: while certainly some fakes are obvious, a lot them aren't. People often use fake photos, and let's face it, you can't ban users from the site just because they're based in China (where most of the knock-offs orginate). It's these cases which make it evident that eBay will always have to rely on the community to a certain extent to do the policing for them. Reader Mcyr agrees:

"When a website like eBay that sees a significant amount of the internet traffic in the world coming through its site daily, they would be hard-pressed to be able to seek out and eliminate every counterfeiter on a proactive basis."

While reader MJAndri agrees that community policing is perfect solution, he also keeps us to the letter of the law:

"...as far as Ebay goes, a company should be held liable for aiding and abetting illegal copying or infringement of a valid trademark, copyright, or patent. The question is whether Ebay indeed has the ability and the resources to stop the illegal conduct. The answer is a resounding yes..."

While selling fakes is certainly illegal, reader BryanH brings up a good point—do LV knock-offs even hurt the brand? LV's argument is that fakes dilutes the exclusivity of their product and detract from the quality associated with their label, but the truth is that most fakes, um, look fake. It'd be hard to mix up the real deal for a Canal Street knock-off. Not to mention the people who are buying fakes probably aren't the same people who'd buy a real LV. One could argue that imposter designer goods actually promote the brand...

Does anyone else want to chime in with their two cents?