| nicomcm said: You dont know the details it seems KruzeS... you haven't read all the case... Or do you mean justice has made a mistake ? |
No, I don't, but neither do you, or have you? And I don't have to think justice made a mistake to disagree with the outcome of it. I don't even have to agree with the law, just as long as I abide by it.
Regardless, what I can tell you for sure is, that no matter what Sony (or Microsoft, or Nintendo) would want you to believe, "grey importing" is not illegal. It may not be a very viable business, given strict EU regulations, but it is certainly not illegal. As long as LikSang's products were conformant with EU safety regulations (which they say they were, Sony says they weren't, I have no reason to believe either way), and as long as they themselves (not Sony) provided a two-year warranty with 30 day replacements to Euro customers (which I'm pretty sure they didn't), it can be perfectly legal. Sony doesn't have to authorize jack shit, no matter what they say. There are a number of brick-and-mortars that import electronics equiments, like other regions or even region-free DVD players, as well as movies. You think those are sanctioned by the movie industry? And it's not any store. In Portugal, where I live, imports DVDs are even sanctioned by a state agency before relase (like any DVDs, CDs and games).
What I'm getting at is that one thing is what LikSang was actually found guilty of, another very different thing is what Sony wants to convince us of in their press releases. This is not just Sony, Nintendo Europe recently had a press release about modchips that was little more than FUD. The thing is, even if your business is "perfectly" legit, nothing really is (I mean perfect), and a big company like Sony will always find some flaw, and sue you into oblivion -if only you're too big to ignore. The funny thing is, in the end, and to avoid the bad press of closing what was already a huge fan store, Sony excuses themselves by saying LikSang didn't even put up a defense, in which case they wouldn't have been found guilty at all, it'd be a judgment by default.
PS: Yes, I very well know the difference between hardware and software imports. You think I'd make comments about two-year warranties if I was talking software? I've imported a ton of stuff from abroad, have you? I've imported hardware from as reputable stores as Amazon.com into Europe. So what?
