Following pressure from the events industry and government bodies e-Bay internet auctioneers have agreed to ban the re-sale of tickets to free music events (Live UK).

The practice first came to light at the 2005 Live 8 charity concert where touts were offering tickets on e-Bay for up to £2,000, an offer stopped by protesters who made £10 million of bogus bids, forcing e-Bay to withdraw.

E-Bay has also agreed to charge re-sellers of charity event tickets a surcharge of 20% which is paid to the charity, whether the reseller gets the face value of the ticket or not.

Meanwhile e-Bay has been ordered by a Paris court to pay £31 million to luxury products companies for allowing the sale of fake copies of the products, which included those marketed by Louise Vuitton, Christian Dior, Givenchy and Guerlain.

The ruling, which is being appealed by e-Bay, follows one last month where they were ordered to pay £15,800 to Hermes for allowing fake bags to be offered. (Daily Telegraph).