Fu*k Sony.

Another reason to hate Sony.

I only shopped there a couple times to get console controller adaptors for my PC (man, I used my N64 controller on my PC for what seems like forever). They shipped pretty quickly the times I shopped.

I was actually looking at GKWorld at some merchandise just yesterday - looks like I may have to go with that or look for some new online import stores. I don't buy foreign games but I think I like Japanese merchandise unavailable here, like those pixelly Super Mario Bros. magnets and keychains and the like. I should get more. But not from Lik-Sang, because Sony is stupid.

Wasn't Planet GameCube affiliated with Lik-Sang?

Yeah, they were our import partners.

Oh, duh. I see an ad for Lik-Sang right there on the front page!

Guess that'll be down soon...

I just read this news posting over at Kotaku and I was simply stunned to read the news. Sony really is an evil corporation, built completely on greed. Lik-Sang did a huuuuge service for the hardcore gaming crowd and Sony had to go screw them over. Seems like what Sony did should be illegal. All I have to say is, f*ck you Sony you greedy money grubbing b@stards.

This is a classic case of having right vs. what's right. Sony has all the right in the world to stop Lik-Sang from selling consoles to regions of the world before they're released there, but from a consumer perspective it's just not right.

Funny how they always goes on about being the brand that's dedicated to the hardcore gamer, and then they turn around and shut down a website that caters STRICTLY to hardcore gamers. It makes sense from a business standpoint, since L-S was technically taking sales from them (although I'm sure the numbers were miniscule); but from a PR standpoint it's one of the worst things they could have done. It's not like mainstream people are ordering from Lik-Sang, hell they wouldn't even know about it.

Leave it to Sony to hurt their core audience in the name of the almighty dollar. And God bless them for being dicks just because they can.

Back in the day, Nintendo was a bit of a bully to other companies when they had the dominant position in the industry, now Sony is doing the same thing, hopefully the PS3 is their N64

Sony is also making it "illegal" to preorder PS3s in the UK.

Believe me when I say that Europe is already pissed off enough about being passed up for launch of the PS3. This is just more icing on the cake.

In any case, the Wii will launch unchecked in Europe as the next big console.

Bleh. I don't even use Lik-Sang, but this is horrible news. I can't wait for Sony to self-destruct.

Sony can officially bite the fattest part of my ass. I'm talking more than they already could...wow this pisses me off. I had unused Lik-Sang points damnit! DAMN YOU SONY! GAH! I need to go before I break a forum rule of some sort...this has me thuroughly POed and Sony can thank themselves for being -1 customer.

Wow, how is Sony able to keep topping itself? I fully expect them to start kicking puppies before the PS3 launches.

Quote

---

Originally posted by: ShyGuy
Wow, how is Sony able to keep topping itself? I fully expect them to start kicking puppies before the PS3 launches.

---

So is Lik-Sang completely gone, or are they just not allowed to sell PSPs?

what F'n douche bags. they use the service and then go hey, let's shut them down.

sony = hitler.

Low act, Sony are going to take as many people down with them as they can.

NoE got the Wii region locked, SCEE felt left behind and decided to do something even worse. Seriously, it's like those two try to outdo each other on the number of customers alienated.

Though I don't get how Lik-Sang goes from "can't ship consoles" to "we're going out of business". How many people actually import consoles instead of buying them local, chipping them and importing only the games?

OTOH, didn't Lik-Sang "go out of business" when they were stopped from selling modchips, too?

This is incredibly depressing news. To me it doesn't even make sense for any of this to even be illegal. Lik Sang didn't steal the PSPs in Asia. Sony got money for those, right? To me this is no different then a used game store only on an international scale. Of course big corporations want those closed down too and the law seems to exist to support big business as opposed to upholding what's right.

Of course all my sound and fury is signifying nothing since I was never going to buy a PS3 anyway.

Quote

---

Originally posted by: Smoke39
So is Lik-Sang completely gone, or are they just not allowed to sell PSPs?

---

They sold more than just games. They could've just stopped selling the games (and certain accessories) and continued on with the other stuff, couldn't they have? >_< Like the posters and toys and keychains and other doodads.

Well, I got the impression that they're going out of business because the legal costs were too high and drove them bankrupt.

I am whirling vortex of vitriol and hate.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

Dear Sony,

Die plz.

Sincerely,
Dirk

Quote

---

The list of PSP related Sony Europe orders reads like the who's who of the videogames industry, and includes Ray Maguire (Managing Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Alan Duncan (UK Marketing Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Chris Sorrell (Creative Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd), Rob Parkin (Development Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited), just to name a few.

---

you know lik-sang actually was one of Sony's biggest customers. Lik-Sang actually has to purchase the systems from Sony before it could resale them. As far as I know. There is no law saying resale is illegal. Gamestop does it all the time.

Exactly. What are they complaining about? They sell more systems and Software because of Lik-Sang and others like it. Is Sony just trying to fail. I mean really. I'm not happy about this at all. I was thinking of picking up a PS2 to replace my broken one because I have games I like to play. But this. Just takes the cake. I'm just going to let my PS2 sit there broken and I just decided my next gen format to. (What really stinks is Sony is the only maker of the UMPC that I wanted oh well.)

Whats next? Are they going to go after GameFly? I sure hope not but it's in line with there thinking.

Personally I think Nintendo should learn from this and have official importing for there system. Allow you to order the whole catalog of games online and be done with it.

The giant who can't swim is sitting on an ever-increasingly-small iceberg.

Yeah, I'd like to know how the court was able to rule in Sony's favor. What's illegal about re-selling systems you legally bought yourself? Is there something I don't know?

it seems to me that copyright is being abused here; why does selling imported psps amount to copyright infringement

Quote

---

Originally posted by: decoyman
Yeah, I'd like to know how the court was able to rule in Sony's favor. What's illegal about re-selling systems you legally bought yourself? Is there something I don't know?

---

I believe they can claim that the imported units are, in effect, different units that function in the same way, thus violating the copyright. Saying that Sony is still getting the money doesn't necessarily work because Sony Europe is not still getting the money.

If everyone imported the system, would there be major issues in Sony Europe? You bet.

Is the number of people that do import things high enough to warrant this kind of action? Probably not.

Though I far from agree with what Sony is doing, legally, I don't have a problem with how the courts ruled. I'm confused as to why Lik-Sang has to shut down though. This does almost seem like they are trying to drum up press for a counter suit. They could easily stop selling Sony products to Europe and still turn a profit. They claim that they are assuming similar lawsuits are going to come flowing in, but who closes a business down based on something that might happen?

Something is fishy here.

Salt in the wound:

Quote

---

In a statement issued to GamesIndustry.biz, Sony has denied any responsibility for the closure of Lik-Sang - accusing the online retailer of "sour grapes".

The statement begins by observing that Sony Computer Entertainment has successfully sued Pacific Game Technology, which uses Lik-Sang as one of its trading names, for infringing intellectual property rights.

"Lik-Sang did not contest this case (i.e. they did not turn up and therefore incurred no legal costs). We have been awarded substantial costs against Lik-Sang which have not been paid," the statement claims.

"We would therefore strongly deny that our actions have had anything to do with this website closing (we assume the legal entity is still trading), and would suggest that this release is sour grapes on behalf of Lik-Sang which is aimed to belittle Sony Computer Entertainment and the British judicial system that found against them."

---

I thought that LikSang was shutting down because Sony was filing multiple suits in multiple countries all over europe? Wouldn't that barrage induce a company to throw its hands up in despair?

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

I assumed the Lik-Sang had to go out of business because Sony was suing them and taking legal action against Lik-Sang. This could force Lik-Sang to go bankrupt and then go out of business because of this.

This is a rather dissappointing and frustrating news from my perspective as I had made at least a few purchases from Lik-Sang in the past year or so. And I had intentions of picking up "Jump Ultimate Stars" from them next month.

At this point all I can say is that Sony can Lik-Sang my balls...

Maybe Lik-Sang should appeal to the EU... Falafelkid's take

You know this is true evil because everywhere I've looked no one has defended it yet (though I'm not looking at Playstation fansites). Usually when some big corporation does something shady at least one jerk is staunchly defending their right to abuse the legal system and destroy other businesses through dirty but technically legal trickery. But so far I haven't seen that which is incredibly rare. Sony truly must have done something terrible if Mr. " has every right to screw you" hasn't shown up.

FREE TRADE NOW. governments all need to be overthrown. one planet, one people.

yeah that was strange how Sony said Lik-Sang didn't come and defend themselves in court.

I too have purchased a handful of stuff over the years through Lik-Sang and I now wonder if Sony will go after Play-Asia and all the other import stores?

The thing that pisses me off the most is that most ppl use Lik-Sang as a way of getting a game that won't show up in there territory. I'm not sure but if you imported a PSP doesn't that mean u can't play domestic games due to the firmware updating? If so wouldn't that mean those ppl would eventually become double dippers for Sony?

I kind of agree with the above statement. (EDIT: I mean, therat's statement.)

If governments were unified, borders dissolved, currency and language amalgamated, humanity would progress a lot faster by focusing on real worldly issues instead of bickering amongst each other about trivial things.

But that's off-topic.

This is on-topic: Sony sucks. But we all knew that. And Ian's right...who would support Sony in this particular instance of stupidity?

This is surprising news, I think I've dealt with Lik-Sang a couple times, one of which was for the GC component cables (which I never got). What Sony did was quite disgusting, it is one thing to refuse to do business with someone or dissassociate yourself but it is another to make them go under by sueing them for basically NOTHING. From what I understand about Lik-Sang this could really end up hurting Sony in the longrun and all I can say is, GOOD!

I believe the opposite. One unified world is a great idea but only if the world had reached a level where the LCD isn't ridiculously low. Personally I'm selfish. I don't want to go to earning squat to be competitive with the rest of the world. Money is still going to go local. I like places of the world being different. *shrug* Free trade has some unexpected side effect sort of like how in the States and Canada its hindered environmental law to a great agree. bah... I just see the economy going down hill where I am and a large part is that everyone here in power is more concerned about other parts of the world instead of here and prefer non-citizens to citizens. This isn't the place for this.

Suffice it to say, I don't think that if they have the proper papers to import/export and the company is willing to sale the product to them for resale then I do not believe that there is any problem in doing so. The company can just stop selling to them. That is how it should work.

What I want to know is, what specifically is the "copyright infringement" they're talking about? If this was about modchips I could understand, but I haven't seen anything that says what copyrights Lik-Sang was violating here. It's the "smoking gun" but nobody seems to have it.

For those of you wondering why Lik-Sang did not attend the hearing and why Sony's lawsuits are forcing the closure of the entire company, you may be interested in this press release which I got a few days ago from Lik-Sang. At the time, it seemed unrelated to any Nintendo matters and so we didn't bother running it.

-------------------------------------------------------

Lik Sang's sales of Sony PSP Consoles illegal,

according to London High Court Judge



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


Hong Kong, October 20th of 2006 - Lik-Sang.com, leading online retailer for
videogame systems, games and cutting-edge gaming gear, was today informed
that Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited and Sony Computer
Entertainment Inc have obtained a judgment in the High Court of London
ruling PSP sales of the popular web store to the UK and the European
Economic Area (EEA) unlawful.



The court hearing took place on October 9 at the High Court of London,
without Lik-Sang's legal representatives attending or arguing at the
hearing. It is unclear at this point if this ruling will also affect exports
of PlayStation 3 and other PlayStation-branded items. Furthermore, Sony
intends to obtain an UK injunction against Lik-Sang's sales to the EEA.



The legal battle with Sony over Lik-Sang's legitimate exporting activities
started during August 2005. Sony complained about the sales of PSP
(PlayStation Portable) systems to Europe and launched a lawsuit in the High
Court of Hong Kong, arguing that Lik-Sang advertises the Sony products "in a
dishonest manner" and "unlawfully interferes with Sony's economical
interests". They further launched a completely separate lawsuit against the
Hong Kong based company in the courts of England for selling PSP consoles to
customers in Europe and the UK, and also for mirroring the freely available
PSP user guides on their servers alleging copyright infringement.



Hong Kong's laws are clear when it comes to parallel trade, and the company
has no ties whatsoever with the UK. While Lik-Sang vigorously contested the
UK's jurisdiction over the allegations, the judge apparently found that UK
law should also apply to Hong Kong exporters. Sony has also threatened Lik
Sang recently to initiate yet another lawsuit to prevent the sales of
PlayStation 3 consoles to Europe.



How this decision will affect Lik-Sang's business is not entirely known at
this time. The retailer is currently exploring its legal options and
analyzing the consequences of this ruling.



"Fighting multiple lawsuits in different countries at the same time and
paying high premiums to expensive lawyers is an overwhelming situation for a
small company like Lik Sang. Launching separate court actions with separate
claims and different judges is completely unnecessary, except for the fact
that it helps reaching one single target: outspend Lik-Sang to death. Pay
beyond", said Pascal Clarysse, Marketing Manager of Lik-Sang.com, clearly
annoyed by the unfair situation. "And contrary to their claim, I don't
believe they are suffering 'losses and damages' through Lik-Sang's
activity".

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote

---

Originally posted by: Rhoq
Fu*k Sony.

---

This is a terrible watershed moment for gaming on the whole. Period. No other competitor is safe...and with a sudden loss of one...expect prices to SOAR across all other streams of attainment.

No way Lik-Sang of all places has to coffers overflowing to the point that they can have scores of lawyers in scores of courthouses all around the same time to even begin to defend. My own personal situation has me stuck against somewhat similar tactics...they don't even FIGURE on winning because they are quite confident that it'll never get far enough to come to that $$$$-wise...from the Antagonist's perspective. That I'm still fighting after 2 years is a matter of a personal stake...but as a business there's no way Lik-Sang could manage in a remotely similar way.

I know some mad SRW devotees and people that wanted ot get the home port of Hokuto no Ken...they'll flip out when they see this mess.

Oh, and you'll find plenty of defenders and celebraters on GFAQS at least...some even not appearing to be blatant troll accounts.

This really suck for Lik-Sang, they could've won if they didn't have to fight against sony's army of blood-sucking lawers. I hope this dosen't spead to the other import store.

Quote

---

Originally posted by: Avinash_Tyagi
Back in the day, Nintendo was a bit of a bully to other companies when they had the dominant position in the industry, now Sony is doing the same thing, hopefully the PS3 is their Virtual Boy

---

Now that Lik-Sang is gone it looks like Ty is my only option. Ty, bring me back Rhythm Tengoku!

Quote

---

This is a classic case of having right vs. what's right. Sony has all the right in the world to stop Lik-Sang from selling consoles to regions of the world before they're released there, but from a consumer perspective it's just not right.

---

Quote

---

The giant who can't swim is sitting on an ever-increasingly-small iceberg

---

What the hell, Sony! You don't make a region-free portable gaming system, then sue people for importing!

Quote

---

"I believe they can claim that the imported units are, in effect, different units that function in the same way, thus violating the copyright. Saying that Sony is still getting the money doesn't necessarily work because Sony Europe is not still getting the money."

---

I said wow...

This is f*cking disgusting.

I'm going to really miss lik-sang. I've ordered from them a few times, and they're great. This sucks so much!! There's so much I want from lik-sang!! X__X

This is just Sony trying to get back some of its losses for thew whole laptop battery scandal. Ugh.

Okay, all and any remaining respect for Sony has been lost now.

I'm going to come in on the side of Ian Sane here (SHAWK HORROR! The Case For Ian?) and say this is pure evil as well. Nintendo basically has the moral high ground in the fanboy wars for another 10 years or so. You can say what you want about shady prcitices and harsh treatment of 3rd parties in the 80's and smalltime price fixing in the 90's but they never outright killed a company.

Sony wasn't smart. The way to stop people importing foreign systems before the local launch is to bring it to the terrirtory ASAP, not sue the place after the fact. It wasn't Lik-Sang's fault Sony made the PSP launch in September 2005, almost a year after the Japanese launch. Sony's customers in Europe were anxious and restless to get one and instead of supplying them they waited a whole year and tried to swarm the US Market with them. And the very fact that Sony's own employees used Lik-sang extensively is a chief point of hypocrisy. So it's good enough for Sony's own employees, but not for Sony's fans? Please.

This is crap.

Sony has already said they think Europeans are used to waiting and won't mind. I think as a protest it would almost be a goosd idea to buy both the Wii and the 360 ASAP so Sony not only loses the sale they realistically would never have gotten from us but are put one sale behind both of their competitors. Even if the PS3 continually sells out, if the competition is selling better (and it can because of the limited PS3 production) Sony loses leverage and more and more publishers are going to tell them to go screw themselves if they keep asking for special treatment ("We don't want you to simply give us a port, add extras for us!" "That game looks worse than our usual games, put it in a compilation or we won't let you sell it!" "Announce a game for the PS3 at E3 or we won't let you publish this game for the PS2!")

I think Lik-Sang could have handled this more professionally. In particular I've heard that Lik-Sang actually leaked the names of Sony employees that used its services, which is quite awful. Of course Lik-Sang has nothing left to lose, so I guess you could say it has positioned itself as a type of suicide bomber with these final statements.

Leaked? They're blatantly announced in the press release. They're pissed obviously, but they didn't really have to name names to get the point across.

You should update this artical, and point out that Lik-sang refused to remove psp from sale in euro like play-asia, then didnt even show up for court

seems there is alot of flaming being done in this thread
geez its was lik-sang's fault its closing down due to dumb management, stop blaming Sony

Quote

---

Sony has already said they think Europeans are used to waiting and won't mind. I think as a protest it would almost be a goosd idea to buy both the Wii and the 360 ASAP

---

Quote

---

At the time of the October 10 case, the presiding judge, Judge Fysh, said: "The acts of which complaint is made have in my view been perpetrated not in Hong Kong but here in the EEA , and without Sony's consent. Moreover, it would make no sense if intellectual property rights in the UK could be avoided merely by setting up a website outside the EEA crafted to sell within it. Were the acts of which complaint is made to have been committed physically within the EEA they would unarguably have been infringing acts. I cannot see how the electronic intermediary of a website which focused at least in part on the EEA would make it any less so."

---

Quote

---

arguing that Lik-Sang advertises the Sony products "in a
dishonest manner" and "unlawfully interferes with Sony's economical
interests".

---

Quote

---

Suing for mirrored material is ridiculous, but reasonable under copyright law.

---

The copyright question was clarified in Jonny's post, but that only justifies a cease and desist, not a lawsuit.

Generally a C&D is issued out of goodwill, the IP owner could bring a lawsuit instead. Though I think this was a trademark dispute, not copyright.

I wonder if Nintendo could have used that same trick to legally pricefix back when they were sued by the EU?

If they knew they couldn't afford to defend themselves in court, why didn't they just honor Sony's request to stop selling PSPs in Europe in the first place?

Because a default judgement can and will still include any damage claims Sony makes so Lik-Sang could be hit with damage claims and their Lik-Sang Europe stuff confiscated.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6083856.stm

hypocritical Sony methinks

The obvious joke here is that Sony may have a point when it comes to personal injury/death with the amount of power that thing brings down.

But really, its quite funny that Sony refers to their goods as "grey market" when purchased thru Lik-Sang. As though Lik-Sang didn't purchase them through the exact same means as Best Buy, Wal-Mart, or any other retailer.
Sony could EASILY file an injunction to prevent Lik-Sang from redistributing its goods, or - I know this may surprise some - NOT sell three 600 unit pallets to the a Mr. Obvious Alias residing at
Broadway Centre, Room 2104, 21/F
93 Kwai Fuk Road
Kwai Chung, NT
Hong Kong

But Sony has to do it their way.
Like, take Nintendo. I thought they were bitches to get the GBA reader/writer taken from LS, but they had good reason, and they sought to fix the issue. I beleive they even recovered some "losses and damages" BS in the matter. LS however is not overreacting now, because Sony chose to sue to set a precedent, and follow through based upon that. Now region J PSPs can be illegal to distribute in the same vein - that the adaptors haven't passed some regulation or whatnot. Funny, any Japanese retailer can price gouge without hesitation, limit, nor any need to restrain whatsoever. But LS won't be able to export them?

How incredible to see LS call out Sony's execs. I might beleive they purchased them for the reasons given, but still - if somebody's screwing up, you don't hand them your money. Not where *I* come from, at least.
"We are very serious about the privacy of our members!" -from Lik-Sang Website. Its just text, but seriously, they're going out of business or they wouldn't rat. Awesome last hurrah tho. I hope PGC can secure somebody else soon!

Good write-up by the BBC there. Grey market, huh? Here's what wikipedia has to say:

Quote

---

Unlike those on the black market, grey market goods are not illegal. Instead, they are being sold outside of normal distribution channels by companies which may have no relationship with the producer of the goods. Frequently this form of parallel import occurs when the price of an item is significantly higher in one country than another; this situation commonly occurs with cigarettes and electronic equipment such as cameras.

---

Wandering that was only one of the charges, it was also the CE approval in Europe

"1. CE Marking on a product is a manufacturer's declaration that the product complies with the essential requirements of the relevant European health, safety and environmental protection legislation, in practice by many of the so-called Product Directives.*

*Product Directives contains the "essential requirements" and/or "performance levels" and "Harmonized Standards" to which the products must conform. Harmonized Standards are the technical specifications (European Standards or Harmonization Documents) which are established by several European standards agencies (CEN, CENELEC, etc).
CEN stands for European Committee for Standardization.
CENELEC stands for European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization.

2. CE Marking on a product indicates to governmental officials that the product may be legally placed on the market in their country.
3. CE Marking on a product ensures the free movement of the product within the EFTA & European Union (EU) single market (total 28 countries), and
4. CE Marking on a product permits the withdrawal of the non-conforming products by customs and enforcement/vigilance authorities."

notice number 4, Japanese PSP didnt have a CE logo
which makes me wonder if the japanese DS has approval

Personally if I was Nintendo. Made a region free game system and didn't just go ahead and get every approval for it at design time so I didn't have to worry about making unique hardware for just one segment of the world. I probably question the efficiency of my design process. Though I don't know if Certification is retroactive. So maybe they are delaying the release of the GBA Ultra to Europe because the EU just haven't given them the approval. Though they are doing the approval on the version 1 retail unit. So any imported unit is the version 1 at least that lets say then gets approved. Since the Version 1 initial shipment in other parts of the world already happened are the products out there also covered by the certification even though the couldn't undergo logoing? Just something to think about.

DeadlyD: Nope, the japanese PSP has a CE certification so that doesn't matter.

And I really don't think CE certification is necessary for imports, that was just Sony spouting BS and I'm not sure the judge even accepted that claim (though you can claim black is white when the defendant doesn't show up).

Finally found a good article on parallel importing and the grey market.

Wikipedia is full of crap. Here's the deal. Compaines don’t want anyone to be able to buy products in one region, where they’re cheaper, and sell them in another region, where they’re more expensive. So, they say importers who do this violate trademark laws.

…‘Huh?' you say. ‘What does selling legitimately purchased, imported goods have in common with, say, illegally selling a book titled Harry Potter (TM): The Lost Adventures'? The answer is nothing, of course. The companies aren't worried about their IP - they're worried about their ability to fix prices. But, they wouldn't get very far in court arguing that they have a right to gouge consumers and block free trade... so they argue they have a right to protect their trademarks from being diluted, instead.

…I know your next question. How could imported goods possibly dilute the quality of companies’ trademarks? Well, let's say, for example, someone imports a Japanese PSP, and he can't read Japanese. Because he can't read Japanese, this person has no idea the instruction booklet warns people never to play with the PSP in the bathtub. So, he plays with it in the bathtub, and gets electrocuted. A man has died from a product with Sony branding, and it's the fault of those no good importers.

Some countries buy into this line of reasoning, and some don't. The United States doesn't. Japan and Hong Kong don't. Europe does. A product made for sale outside the European Economic Area (EEA) can't be sold inside the EEA without the trademark holder's permission.

Lik-Sang, of course, did not have Sony's permission to sell PSPs within the EEA. So Sony could claim lik-sang was infringing on their trademarks, and damaging Sony.

...That was Sony’s big weapon in it's fight against lik-sang, but it wasn't their only one. They also brought up unfair competition laws, false advertising laws, and even electrical certification laws, just to make doubly sure that the psp sales would be stopped. Also, to make sure lik-sang was as overwhelmed as possible, they even sued for a manual lik-sang had copied onto their website, even though lik-sang had already taken it down at Sony's request.

Lik-sang had only thing they could use in response: the fact that they were based in Hong Kong, where the European laws Sony was throwing at them didn't apply. But lik-sang was out of luck. The judge thought that, because they had a website that was set-up to sell products within the EEA, European laws should apply.

The rest is history.

Sort of like if you have a server or physical presence in Tennessee you must charge sales tax even though its an online purchase.

I have to say I'm getting to hate the EU courts more and more. They keep doing things that effect the whole world in the eyes of there own little piece. There like the Southern Baptist.

Thanks, wandering.
Actual, informative threads? On MY internets?
Its more likely than you think.

Welcome.

What I'm still not clear on is if the judge accepted that or if he just said "the defendant didn't show up, here's a piece of blank paper, write your desired judgement".

Six+ Year Mega Bump for Justice!

http://consumerist.com/2013/03/19/supreme-court-says-reselling-books-bought-overseas-does-not-violate-copyright/

While this doesn't 100% apply to the Sony/Lik-Sang case, I immediately thought of it when I read this.

The only difference I see is that this ruling came out of the US while Sony's issues were with the UK courts.  So, it's a positive thing for US folks. :D

The ruling only applies if the product is legally sold in that other country. So it would not apply to pirated copies, for example.

It doesn't really apply to the Sony situation at all. Funny reading some old posts and seeing some people and the false claims about who was right and why.

Um... Lik-Sang didn't sell pirated software?  (Well, they did, but that was long before all this went down and when it was under different ownership).

This all went down because they were importing PSPs from JPN to the UK.

I know, that sentence was about this recent court ruling (with the court saying the ruling only applies to stuff legally sold by the IP holder in another country).

So... Lik-Sang was buying stuff (PSPs) legally sold by the IP holder (Sony) in another country (Japan) and reselling them overseas.

Thus, if we were talking about sales into the US, this ruling would cover the exact situation, correct?

Probably not unless Lik-Sang is based in the USA or this was tried in the US Court System.  (I think their out of Asia)