[News] Ahahaha (lik-sang's CLOSED)

I don't even think people realize what import taxes really are for or the fact that Lik-Sang somehow completely bypasses this aspect of importing.

Now with that in mind, consider the PS3. Sony dropped the price of the PS3 $100 in Japan to better fit that market and it also means they will be making $100 less on each console sold in Japan. Now there are laws in place for global trading which helps protect companies which allows them to do this. One major method of this is import taxing where most of that money eventually ends up in the hands of the originating company. This means that even though Sony sold a $400 Playstation to someone in Europe, import taxes should make up the difference in domestic and foreign prices.

Lik-Sang bypasses this entire process. This means Sony has the potential to lose a TON of money because not only will they be selling a bunch of Playstations for $400 to the Japanese market, but they will also be selling them at $400 to a potentially huge import market.

This is the basis of what is known as arbitrage and the abuse of arbitrage is something that many countries are now making illegal.

TL: DR : Sony has every right to do what they did. I'm sure the other companies in the market are secretly thanking Sony for stepping up to do this.

As a gamer, yeah it sucks. I've used Lik-Sang more than once myself. But from a business perspective it can't be ignored that companies like Lik-Sang are exploiting many new problems that have come up as global trading grows.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Elixir

Acer, it isn't lik-sang's fault at all.

I'm going to have to highly disagree with this. Sony sent Lik Sang multiple cease and desist letters demanding they stop selling PSP hardware which Sony has the right to do under trademark law. Lik Sang ignored all of these and as a result Sony took legal action against them.

Lik Sang also has a terrible history of shutting down to avoid having to pay out lawsuit fines only to reappear later on. I think Sony is far from a model corporation, but I also hold no respect for Lik Sang as a company either.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by AcerBandit

Me thinks Sony should have been busier sending out PSPs to Europe instead of C&Ds to Lik-Sang. Less money wasted I'd say. I mean Sony is getting money through those PSPs Lik-Sang sold somehow. It's not like Lik-Sang stole them in bulk.

Well the issues of parallel importing are a lot more complex than that. I'd rather not go over all of them though since you could construct half a college business course on the subject.

Let's just say trademarks give the right of distribution to the trademark holder for a good reason.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I think a lot of you need to first read the basics of parallel importing, what is it, and where it is illegal and why:

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

Secondly, the generalizations need to stop. First, Sony sued Lik-Sang for importing PSPs specially to the UK not to the entire world. Second, the suit does not cover the concept of games. Importing games that cannot be obtained in your region is not illegal and no legal action has ever been taken by Sony or anyone else in attempts to prevent this.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by DELTASABER

I'm going to need a clarification on this, as the wiki link doesn't explain it.

Legally, what's the difference between hardware and software export? Why are games ok and untouchable, but the hardware itself is not?

I fail at legal stuff

Sorry for such the late reply. I hate to bring this topic up again, but I don't want to leave this question unanswered.

It's not that games are untouchable, its just that with games we are dealing with a lot of different parties. The publisher of each game are the ones who hold distribution rights. That means it is up to them to claim distribution rights in each region. A lot of these publishers simple don't care or feel the market is being effected by their games being imported or the amount of work/money required to enforce their distribution rights isn't worth the gain of exclusive distribution. A second reason is the game actually has to be available in a region for a company to claim exclusive rights. I'm not sure about 100% European law, but there is also a stature of limitations on this claim which I believe is six months.

Just for example, say Square releases Final Fantasy XII to the US. Square can make an announcement they are planning on releasing Final Fantasy XII to the European market and claim distribution rights on it. At this point the importation of Final Fantasy XII is in fact illegal. However, there is also a six month stature of limitation, meaning if Square fails to make the product available within six months of the claim, they lose their distribution claims and importing of the product from other regions is allowed. I also think Square would have to wait another 3 months before they can reclaim distribution rights in Europe if such a situation happened.

So the same rules apply to games, but the game market is just a lot more complex than the video game hardware market. Distribution of software in Europe is also a bit more lax compared to the distribution of hardware since the language barrier tends to create a natural boundary in the software market.

I was speaking idiomatically.