Sony can sue distributor for sales value of stolen goods, not just cost

Only acceptable if

This is only acceptable if the retailer is suing Sony for the sale loss. Sony can then get their money back from the packaging company.

If Sony aren't going to be out of pocket by this amount, then Sony are getting unjust enrichment and the extra should not go to Sony but to court costs and the government.

Sony are evil

Maybe not more than all the other big companies that now see it as normal to use litigation as a new revenue stream, but evil all the same.

It scares me more and more each day what these companies think of as acceptable and normal.

At least when they are sueing other companies Sony are laying off bankrupting the families of 12-year-old file-sharers.

@Mark

I think the point is that they are out of pocket for that amount, the sale was made at the value the retailer (who must have considered it fair) paid. Not for the cost of manufacture. There was no depreciation involved, so why should Sony lose out on the profit they would have made if the packaging company had been more competent in holding onto their customers goods?

I can't stand Sony personally, it's my opinion they tend to manafacture overpriced gimicks with shoddy construction nowadays.

I know if I purchased a brand new television and it was stolen on the day it was delivered to me I would expect a full reimbursment from my insurance company, not the price it cost to manufacture the television, it's not the same scenario, but it's the same principle.

@ Seven_Spades

No.

1) WTF has habeas corpus got to do with it ?

2)The cards were already paid for by the customer.

The intermediary "lost" the cards which left Sony in the position of having to return the money or produce new cards for no profit. (They could have sold the new cards for the production price plus profit had they not had to replace the ones lost).

Whichever way you spin it, Sony lost out due to the intermediary, not due to any fault of their own.

Did the distributor have no insurance ?

If you buy a new Ferrari and the firm transporting it to you smash it up, is it down to Ferrari to provide a new one at cost price to the transporters ? Of course not. If the transporters lost an item worth full price, the manufacturer still deserves the full price, otherwise they lose out through no fault of their own.

Can you walk into a shop and smash up a valuable item, then only pay the cost of production ?

The whole article is one big "DUH!"

Of course they can sue for the price they were being paid for them - at the point they were lost that was their market value.

If they were lost between Sony's production facility and say a Sony stock warehouse, then at that point their value is only the production cost (maybe plus some extra for how far down the chain they had moved but that overcomplicates things here) and this argument would probably hold.

Conversely, as others have said, if they were lost later on (if the company was instead involved in transferring from retailer to customer for example) then the value has again increased to the (kindly estimated above) sum of £15 per unit and that would be how much they would be liable for.

Sony produces them knowing how much they can sell them for, why should they have to produce more to replace those that now cannot be sold through no fault of their own?

Nice margin!

Sony must be pretty upset that on top of all this the Court published their cost price! Just so we all are even more upset with just how much mark up goes on the Sony brand.