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OJ SIMPSON’S scuttled book about the murder of his ex-wife attracted hot but brief bidding on eBay before being removed on Wednesday, while the former football star laughingly said he had been paid and had spent his advance. The book, If I Did It, and an accompanying two-part television interview were dropped by media conglomerate News Corp. on Monday after an outcry from advertisers, booksellers and relatives of the dead. The book and interview were touted as a hypothetical account of how Simpson would have killed ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994. Simpson was reportedly paid a sum of $3.5m in advance. Publishers have pledged to recall and destroy all the books but one copy appeared briefly on eBay. It got more than 50 bids, the highest of more than $1,600, in about two hours. The former football star was acquitted in 1995 of charges he committed the bloody June 1994 murders. But a civil court jury in 1997 found him liable for the deaths and awarded the victims` families $33.5m in damages. Little of the judgment has been collected. Publisher HarperCollins, part of the News Corp. group, said on Wednesday it had contacted eBay about removing the copy of If I Did It from the Web site. An eBay spokesman said HarperCollins took action under laws governing intellectual property rights.
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