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Lik-Sang.com Taken to Court By Sony
Joe writes "As published on Lik-Sang's Website Sony has taken legal actions against Hong Kong's largest exporter of videogames and videogaming gear. One month before the official european launch and 9 months after the initial release of the PSP, this action looks very late at first sight. Since it's highly doubtful that Sony can permit the resale of the japanese PSP consoles in Hong Kong no matter if on the local market or for export, it looks like this is planned to be one of the not the bright marketing ideas of the Sony HQ. The japanese PSP has the same Region Code for UMDs as the ones which will be sold in europe in september. Since the shipping at Lik-Sang is free, the console is even cheaper to import than to buy it locally."
Since it's highly doubtful that Sony can permit the resale of the japanese PSP consoles in Hong Kong no matter if on the local market or for export, it looks like this is planned to be one of the not the bright marketing ideas of the Sony HQ.
Sorry, I don't mean to be the grammar-police on Monday morning, but that's just plain terrible.
I'll translate:
Since it's highly doubtful that Sony can permit the resale of the Japanese PSP consoles in Hong Kong (whether or not they are available for export), this seems to be a rather poor marketing idea coming from Sony's headquarters.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
It's not blocking the huge Lik-Sang advert on the front page of slashdot.
Is there a setting I missed?
IANAL but to me it seems like region codes are an obstruction of free trade. Why wouldn't any judicial or legislative body speak out against this?
Since the shipping at Lik-Sang is free, the console is even cheaper to import than to buy it locally.
It is not cheaper to import to the UK. While the price at Lik-Sang for a PSP minus shipping is cheaper than what the UK PSP price will be, you will always get charged import tax plus. Customs seem to know Lik-Sang and they always slap on the import tax. Plus the courier e.g. UPS, DHL et al always put a surcharge on top of the tax because they pay the tax for you at customes and then demand a cheque when they arrive at your door.
So overall it comes out to be more expensive to import by about £20 or so. Still, if importing annoys Sony then I'm all for it, since I don't see why they should be allowed to dictate who can and cannot sell PSPs, it's just a monopoly.
Sony is being greedy over a few dollars. This company is buying and selling mass amounts of usits. Sony should be happy they are getting there wholesale rate, im sure it doesnt change that much from country to country, its all relative. The whole point of internet commerce is having the ability to find competitive prices and order from anywhere in the world.
See, companies like Sony complain about people importing their products, but if they'd just bring their products to us quicker, this wouldn't happen. Can someone give me one good reason they couldn't launch the PSP in Europe at the same time they launched it in America? If companies can make it more of a priority to bring products to overseas markets quicker, or at all in many cases, than they are going to have to deal with the reality of importing as a consumer solution. For the record, I totally back Lik-Sang.com. They're where I import my Gamecube games from. Awesome site. Down with Sony!
It's charmingly naive to believe that juidicial or legislative bodies are concerned with free trade. Mainly, they represent power interests and as such the laws created by and for those interests. "Free trade" comes onto the agenda when there is an advantage to be gained: mainly, in access to a market otherwise protected by anti-import legislation.
As another poster in this thread pointed out, free trade is rarely done out of principle, not even by institutions such as the WTO that claim this as their reason for existence.
Thus, the USA can subsidise its own cotton farmers to the point where countries like Niger cannot sell their cotton on the world market for a fair price. That's ok. But when Airbus get cheap loans from governments, that's not ok.
"Free trade" is excellent in theory and nice when it actually happens, but don't imagine it's the top priority for many people except economists.
Your games are region-protected because as a consumer, you don't actually have any rights except to spend / not spend your money. If you don't like companies that rip you off, don't buy their products.
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