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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."
There seem to be a small error in the summary so I fixed it.
'Ultimately, we're trying to protect consumers from being sold hardware that is cheaper than what can be bought locally'
Don't like it ? Vote with your wallet, don't buy one.
This is another side to globalization. As the world as a whole becomes more interconnected thanks to the internet and cheap international shipping, the marketting notion of making products available in different contries at different times is not going to hold up.
It's the same issue you already see DVD region encoding, and with digital music services: people complaining about albums being available in some countries and not others when everyone is getting their tunes from a server on the Internet.
In the future corporations are going to need to stop thinking they can easily dictate the geographical spread of their goods and start thinking of their product launches as a worldwide event. The entertainment industries need to stop setting up distribution deals for invidual regions and make their deals for global availablity. If they don't they will only see their products pasisng through black-market channels and piracy rings more readily instead of generating more revenue for them.
If only certain corporations would realise that its often not so much their predictable actions of self-interest which disgust people, but their wilful dishonesty.
If they'd just say, "We brought this action to ensure that us and only us get to squeeze every last penny-worth of value out of our product and we don't have to share with anyone"... perhaps not a flowers-and-rainbows kinda sentiment but sheesh at least it'd be honest!
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
If they don't like my ability to sell something I've bought to someone else, and buy similarly, then I have a simple solution for them. They can vote with their products and not sell them.
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
If Lik Sang were to bulk-buy PSPs from Japanese retailers (legal) in Japan, have the purchased PSPs delivered to the home addresses in Japan of minimum-wage Japanese workers who open the PSP retail box/packaging and use the PSPs for at least a month (legal), the consoles would then be used goods which could be legally exported and sold anywhere in the world including the EU and UK. Even after shipping costs and customs taxes are taken into account, it should still be profitable given the relatively very high prices in the EU and UK of brand new PSPs.
Scroogle
I keep posting the "Friends dont let friends buy Sony" comment on most Sony related articles.
/.ers, help me fight aganst the evil Sony agents and mod this up.
I now wonder if Sony are monitoring me. They certainly are modding these posts flaimbait consistently.
Are they going through my thrash, and obtaining my phone records as well?
Anyway I boldly repeat here again:
Much of the money you spend buying Sony gear goes to support anti consumer efforts from DRM, Infected CD's, Unusable due to DRM Blu-Ray HD-DVD. They may actually help kill the entire HD DVD effort.
Fellow
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
I'm dubious of any true safety concerns. Does Sony want it shouted that: Sony sells unsafe PS3's everywhere in the world except the UK, because only UK law won't allow it!
If the PS3 is truly unsafe, are they going to be stopping travelers returning from other markets overseas and siezing their lawfully purchased PS3 consoles on safety concerns? I doubt it.
The only way you'll fix this in the UK is by a vote for people who will reliably overturn laws that screw the consumers at large to artifically protect monopolies. Should we shout, Is anyone in the UK listening?
What am I doing for my part? Not voting for John Kyl who instituted the Internet Gaming Ban in the USA, and had to sneak it through as part of another, more important, bill because no one wanted their vote on record over this issue.
Who else here in Slashdot land is doing their part, no matter how small, this year?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"Ultimately, we're trying to protect consumers from ..
- The PSP has a power supply for 100 - 240V, I'm told, and besides let's not pretend that Sony doesn't have to build all its various Playstations to be acceptable worldwide, shall we?
"is not - in PS3's case - backwards compatible with either PS1 or PS2 software"
- again, similar situation all around the world, what does this have to do with anything?
"will not play European Blu-Ray movies or DVDs"
- because YOU built in restrictions to fuck us over with!
"and will not be covered by warranty."
- strictly by your own decision, there's nothing to prevent you extending the manufacturer's warranty i.e. another way by which to fuck us over.
Perhaps a subtlety on the last point might be an expectation that a faulty unit would have to be returned to the importer - but that's the buyer's choice / risk to take. And it would be interesting if "grey" importers then found it profitable to set up local offices in rip-off parts of the world.
You know, in financial and commodity markets the principle of arbitrage is pretty well accepted. There's just no damn reason why manufacturers like Sony should be allowed to create articifical barriers to otherwise well accepted market mechanisms. As has been pointed out elsewhere, as long as people have to suck it up and bear it with market effects like outsourcing, the corporates shouldn't be able to give themselves exemptions.
It's funny, this is the same thing happens with pharmaceuticals in the U.S. The industry doesn't want people importing Canadian drugs (which are much cheaper) and one thing mentioned is that they have concern the drugs do not meet U.S. quality standards.
I have yet to hear anyone ask if that's true doesn't that mean they are giving Candaians sub-quality prescription drugs. You think there would be a Canadian-consumer uproar with such simple logic.
I was wondering "Since when does anyone have to get permission from the manufacturer to sell a legally bought item?"
- hole-in-first-sale-doctrine.html
But it turns out that the U.S. has a similar policy w/regards to IP.
The reasoning is that the unauthorized sales violates rights held by licensed distributors of the product, regardless of the legalities behind the (grey market) ownership & sale of the items in question.
http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2005/05/is-there
The doctrine of first sale only applies to goods made in countries which have such a doctrine. Basically, if Sony has a distributor network set up, you (as a company) cannot circumvent that network. I imagine it isn't a problem if your cousin/friend/other in China or Japan mails you one.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!