Founding Prospectus
"We shall eliminate any unfair profit seeking practices [and] constantly emphasise activities of real substance"
Masaru Ibuka, 1908 - 1997 (Founder and Chief Advisor, Sony Corporation).
Friday, June 17, 2005
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4 comments:
I wish you luck, Dan.
I've been involved in independent movie rental and retail, and games retail/trading for over ten years as a store assistant, and then as a store owner, and then, four years ago, I bought the store I had spent so much time in.
No sooner had I bought it, than an onslaught of anti-competitive action began from all angles. Chain stores started closing independent stores down with ridiculous offers and unfair trading practices. We survived. Then, not only did an independent games store open up to compete with us, throwing stupid amounts of money into buying vast quantities of used stock in order to force us out of the market, but also a Chain store, in the guise of an 'independent' franchise, came in to a tiny town to steal everyone's pie.
In independent movie rental and retail, Region 1 importing seemed to be the answer, and while Play.com and others survived from Jersey and are doing incredibly well, the independents were once again the entrepreneurs (and lets not forget, independents started both these businesses) who got burned for being entrepreneurial, always falling foul of the ever shifting interpretations of 'copyright'...
Deprived of that, then the movie studios (and Sony are a big culprit) decided to change the model. If you're a chain store, you can stock a movie cheap enough to sell at £12.99. If you're an independent, you can't sell for less than the £19.99 retail price. If you're chain rental, you can stock rental copies for not much more than the £12.99... if you're independent rental, you can pay between £30-£40 inc VAT for the same product, all defended, once again, under European Copyright Law.
You can appeal to the OFT, and get ignored. You can appeal against monopolies, and get ignored. You can appeal to the courts and say 'we've never voted to be legislated by Europe, so why can't we have our own common sense copyright laws' and you'll be ignored. You'll be faced with the same blasé manner of the corporate giant who can outspend you on legal fees and wait for you to cave in order to never have to have a court verdict, and simply make you pay for your own bankruptcy.
We turned to selling DVD players... and yet now the bottom has fallen out of the market there because the supermarkets insist on selling cheap garbage to set the precedent for what a piece of good electronics should look like...
Everywhere we independent entrepreneurs turn, we're constantly faced with opposition from those who are terrified that we'll actually make money doing it.
The statistics tell the truth on the Region 1 DVD market... They go after independents because they're an easy target with no real means of defence. They leave the big boys alone because 30% or more of all DVD's sold in America wind up in foreign markets. Imagine them slashing that, and losing 30% of their profits in the USA....
There's room for both markets, and we're supposed to live in a world of fair and free trade. This is protectionism and nothing more. The giants will form cartels to suit their ends and government will overlook it... They will ride roughshod over independents until there is nothing left at all, except the chains, who will then become the enemy, because they will then have the power to dictate to the giants how it's going to be.
We're making a horrible world for ourselves...
Support independents and support free enterprise!!!
Thanks for your support Steve (unofficial guest blogger today!)
I keep reminding myself: business is business. They made a commercial decision and they think they can profit from it. Businesses will always interpret the law in a way that will maximise their profit. Mr Ibuka has always been a role model of mine, I wonder what he would say about what his company is doing?
If I were running Sony I would have tried to find a way to work with importers to mutually benefit all parties. They are a litigious lot, perhaps all the endless ‘killing’ has driven them mad?
Perhaps their R&D lot have developed a crystal ball and they can see that my company will one day be their major rival...’wipe them out, all of them’.
The more paper they send me the brighter my fire is burning.
(if you work for SJ Berwin or some other legal representative of the Claimants, just to clarify, that last statement is a metaphor, of course any letters you send me are being kept, read, read again, and filed...jeeez)
I will be giving away 1 x £20 voucher to spend at electricbirdland.co.uk if you can tell me which movies I have quoted from in this post.
'Wipe them out, all of them’
Was that from Star Wars Episode III? Actually I can't really tell what movies you quoted from there!
My regards to your ongoing court case. I hope all goes smoothly with no scars left on both parties. I really wonder what Sony is up to...
It was The Phantom Menace i think, not EpIII.
Good luck with this Dan !
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