Topic: Sony Puts Lik-Sang Out of Business

[Ceric]

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.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

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

[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?

[BiLdItUp1]

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

[wandering]

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 think there was $ome kind of $erious i$$ue with $afety $tandards or $omething.

By the by, I ran across an interesting theory on the internets that this is just a big publicity stunt. I would quite enjoy such a twist.

[Pale]

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.

[archioverload]

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."

The salt of evil. Grrrr.

Hey, have you heard that up is actually down?

[Kairon]

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

[Jome20]

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...

[Jin-X]

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

[Ian Sane]

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. "[company X] has every right to screw you" hasn't shown up.

[therat]

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

[WuTangTurtle]

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?

[JonLeung]

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?

[GoldenPhoenix]

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!

[Ceric]

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.

[NWR_Lindy]

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.

[Jonnyboy117]

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".

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

[oohhboy]

Quote
Originally posted by: Rhoq
Fu*k Sony.

Amen to that.

I have never shopped at LK, but I import alot of my stuff from other channels. It just reaffirms my view that a sale is a sale anywhere.

[getter77]

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.

[stevey]

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.

[S-U-P-E-R]

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

fixin' this

[vudu]

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

[IceCold]

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.

Chrono Trigger: Resurrection?

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

Ever-shrinking?

[TheYoungerPlumber]

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