A woman from the Galicia region of Spain has claimed ownership of the Sun since 2010, and has been selling it off for about a buck a square meter, reports the Daily Mail. Eventually eBay blocked her account, because you know, she doesn’t actually own the Sun and therefore, should not be selling nothing to people.
But she’s now won the right to take the company to court, suing for about $11,000. She claims eBay took commissions on her sales but didn’t let her collect her earnings from a reported 600 orders of Sun.
“There was no snag, I backed my claim legally, I am not stupid, I know the law. I did it but anyone else could have done it, it simply occurred to me first,” the woman told the Daily Mail back in 2010.
In her point of view, just because the Outer Space Treaty prohibits a sovereign nation from owning a celestial body, it says nothing about individuals claiming those um, properties. She says she was inspired by a U.S. entrepreneur who registered several planets under his own name in 2010 and made more than $10 million selling land on the moon, Mars, Venus and Mercury.
To support her claim on the Sun, she has a notary public document that declares her to be “the owner of the Sun, a star of spectral type G2, located in the centre of the solar system, located at an average distance from Earth of about 149,600,000 kilometers.”
The case will focus on eBay’s seller agreement and whether or not she was in breach of that policy. The company reportedly tried to settle out of court, but it appears that attempt was not successful.
The so-called owner of the Sun says she will continue to sell parcels of it via her own website.
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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