Sony's Win a Major Blow for Importers

Joan Cross writes "Sony won a battle in the UK Courts over the importing to Europe of Playstation Portables by Lik Sang. They say that 'Ultimately, we're trying to protect consumers from being sold hardware that does not conform to strict EU or UK consumer safety standards, due to voltage supply differences et cetera'. Of course, the PSP comes supplied with a 100-240v adapter which is safe worldwide. Lik Sang has posted their reaction to the court decision. Could be bad news for those wanting PS3 Consoles on import."

Comments

What about Japanese exporters?

[maynard]

Price Japan will export just about anything Japanese to anyone in the world. Some years ago I bought a Sony HS-20 video projector from that site, because it wasn't available in the US at the time. It still works just great. But perhaps court judgments like this will ultimately kill companies like Price Japan.

So, does this mean that Sony can legally prevent private international re-sale of their product line too? Where is the demark line between what is and what is not permissible?

Control.. it's all about control. And stupidity.

[Channard]

As a UK resident, importing consoles has never been something I've been concerned about. Not least because we can get stung for import duty - which is going to be a hell of a lot on a console, especially when you add custom charges on. My concern is more that success in this area will lead to restrictions on importing software. What I have found more useful is the ability to import games from other places. Play-Asia, for example lets you get certain region-unlocked X-Box 360 games for less than half the price of buying in the the UK. And there are some games that are severely delayed as well. Advance Wars for the GBA, for example, only hit the UK 6 months after its US release. The same thing applies to DVDs - many titles are available in the US well before the UK.

Why should these companies realistically care anyway? It's not like consumers are buying those crappy knock-offs of consoles you could get during the days of the SNES. And as for safety reasons? What the hell? How would Sony be liable? Most hardware I've bought contains pages and pages of legalese saying where it's intend for use in, what voltage it takes etc. The fact is, this is all about control. Companies are scared of not having 100% control over where customers get their products from. If they really want to regain control, they should try not only equalizing prices, but actually ensuring there's a simultaneous release of their products across the world. Releasing the PS3 in March in the UK certainly doesn't help things.

As for Sony's comments that the PS3 'will not play European Blu-Ray movies or DVDs', I wouldn't buy a PS3 or a X-Box 360 for playing HD DVDs. Certainly, neither's HD facility will be region-free. And there are myriad titles that never get released in a certain region. Unless you only have an interest in watching mainstream blockbusters, a region-free player is a must. And the PS2's DVD performance was laughable. Not because it was poor quality, but because when you tried to watch any film in RGB mode, it green tinted the picture. Apparently this was some kind of copy protection measure. Yes, even though DVDs have macrovision. Who's to say the PS3 won't have some daft similar limitation.

Re:Globalization

[Kattspya]

I don't think there is anything exempt from VAT in Sweden except books (and that just happened a few years ago). I think some kinds of entertainment like concerts and the like are "only" 6%. But there are taxes on everything else.

If you like taxes Sweden is the place to go. First you the employer pays a tax for having an employee (it's basically hidden income tax). Then the worker gets to pay income tax of about 30-40%. Then you have VAT and the other nice little taxes. All those taxes ammounts to about 60% of the average persons income. The ammount of taxation of the BNP is a little more than 49%. Some things are even taxed several times. First theres a tax on gas then you pay VAT on the total cost including the original tax. The same goes for things like electricity and tobacco.

The best part is that the VAT was supposed to be temporary and originally was 5% if i remmeber correctly.

Re:Globalization

[Acer500]

It's far from the only country in the world.

Argentina & Uruguay (my country - South America) also pay VAT and/or other taxes on food (23% for most stuff, 14% on other). We do follow Spain's lead (unfortunately)

On the other hand, we have some legislation stating that if a company is already importing something (the PSP in this case), you can do paralell imports (or something to the effect) under the "Exhaustion of rights"

As usual, Wikipedia has a neat article on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_import

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaustion_of_rights

It's part of a debate which is still happening, the EU is against it, but I would be for it (without having looked too much into it, I'm mostly favorable to fre trade and globalization means most of these barriers are artificial anyways).

Another nice link from New Zealand (a country that's often quoted as exemplary):

http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/Page____1230.aspx

The rationale of the previous government for removing the prohibition on parallel importing was to ensure that New Zealand consumers could access imported goods at world-best prices by promoting a more open and competitive environment. The suggestion that some copyright products were more expensive in New Zealand than in other countries was based on analysis contained in Parallel Importing: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation. The general conclusion of the report was that lifting the blanket parallel-importing ban on all copyright goods was likely to provide net gains to the New Zealand economy as a whole. There was, however, some suggestion that the availability of parallel imported copies of major new release film titles for rental in advance of New Zealand theatrical release was contributing to declining cinema box office takings. [Legislation addressing this] subsequently passed as the Copyright (Parallel Importation of Films and Onus of Proof) Amendment Act 2003.

Too bad the cinemas won there (see last part).