So, where the defendant and plaintiff have no existing contractual relationship the Hague Convention does not apply to matters involving intellectual property. As per Schedule 3H:
"1. This Convention shall not apply to the following matters—
(m)intellectual property;"
As I see it anyone affected needs to contact the court/judge to inform them they do not recognise the jurisdiction of the court and request to be removed as a defendant from the case on that basis. Something like this:
"Court Case Title: <ID number>; <plaintiff name> v. The Partnerships and Unincorporated Associations Identified on Schedule “A”
I - <eBay User ID> - identified as a defendant in Schedule “A” of the above case am a British/Northern Irish citizen. Being a British/Northern Irish citizen who is subject to the laws of the United Kingdom I do not recognise the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court for the District of <state>. I therefore request to be removed as a named defendant from this case."
And attach/include a screenshot of your "About" page on eBay showing you are registered in the United Kingdom.
It looks to me like Sriplaw et. al. realise it's pointless pursuing a UK-based seller directly. Even if they obtain a default judgement for their plaintiff in a US District Court the plaintiff would need to pursue that judgement through the UK's County/Sheriff courts as a contractual debt. However, they could only claim for "actual loss" (not damages) if they did and would not be able to reclaim legal expenses making doing so pointless in virtually all cases. It seems what Sriplaw et. al. are trying to do is hold the defendants' eBay accounts to ransom; either the defendant pays up/comes to some payment agreement or a default judgement is entered forcing the closure of their eBay account. I'm not even sure why eBay is entertaining this as they're never named as a defendant in "Schedule A" and it seems the plaintiff's involved (or rather, their attorneys) are bypassing eBay's VeRO Program.
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
