Civil Suit Accuses Electronics Giants of Price-Fixing; DoJ Probe Continues
Way to go! (A similar Justice Department investigation in 2002 led to guilty pleas from top international manufacturers of computer DRAM.) Now, if only the DoJ would go after the cable companies, we'd have a Democratic majority in perpetuity...
A home electronics retail store has filed a class-action lawsuit against Sony Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Toshiba Corp., LG Electronics Inc., Hitachi Ltd. and several subsidiaries, accusing the electronics manufacturers of colluding to fix prices in the U.S. optical disc drive (ODD) market.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, also claims the disc drive manufacturers used trade organization forums to meet and discuss agreements to keep prices of CD, DVD and Blu-ray drives in products like the Sony PlayStation 3 and PCs artificially high.
[...] Samsung, which has received subpoenas from the DOJ, said it had "no comment regarding price fixing on optical drives." Officials at Hitachi and Toshiba could not be reached for comment.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal last fall, Hitachi and Toshiba also received subpoenas regarding the probe into ODD price fixing.
An investigation was launched last October by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) into the market for optical disk drives for anticompetitive conduct. The DOJ subpoenaed Sony Optiarc America, which at the time said it intended to cooperate fully with the DOJ and other agencies in this inquiry."
According to one published report, the investigations goes well beyond just Sony, and involves other electronics manufacturers.
mainly because I watch few movies anyway. But I always thought the stuff seemed outrageously priced. For the difference between DVD and Blu-Ray, the latter better provide some sort of sexual favors in addition to that clearer picture.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
porn images.
me-oww!
If this wins, I want some money back for my PS3.
IMPOSSIBLE!!! such a thing is not possible in a free market such as ours!
/snark
They will slap some wrists good!
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
It's good to see that there is something going on about price fixing. We need to have TECHNICAL standards setting bodies that work across different companies (unless you'd like to not only have to choose between Blu-Ray and DVD but also choose between Blu-Ray for Panasonic and Blu-Ray for Sony), but those bodies need to stay confined to symposiums of geeks, not marketing or business people.
Is this a free market thing?
I thought [ACSI] had this covered?
Study the symptoms not the virus...
on everything from cars to VCR's plus the Japanese governments subsidies to these industries to help them get unfair competitive advantages over other countries, mostly USA, to keep their people working over ours. And conservatives held them up to be praised and examples of the virtues of capitalism when they've never been much more than fascists.
Considering that the US gubmint has been guilty of the same thing, we've no cause to whine about what the Diet do.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
it is part and parcel of capitalism (not the ideological sort, the real sort)
What is this "Justice Department" you speak of? Is that some sort of comic book organization, with superheros and stuff?
Because the U.S. government isn't in the business of prosecuting crimes. Not big ones, anyway. Not committed by corporations against little people.
(Perhaps some corporations were a little slow in their monthly... ah... lobbying efforts and needed to be prodded a bit.)
Gee. A DOJ probe into price fixing? I thought the free market could take care of any problem?
Colluding? The free market sets prices. We have only to trust it.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
I saw this today and wondered why they needed a study to figure it out.
Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds.
Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. ...
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/26/liberals.atheists.sex.intelligence/index.html
Truly shocking revelation there isn't it? About the same as hearing that a corporation is trying to jack up prices.
Well...2 outta 3 ain't bad.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
a fucking walk on war crimes.
IF they find any wrong doing here what will the punishment be? Something like an apology and a large settlement (taxpayer $$$) from the DOJ for investigating in the first place?
Does this DOJ even know what wrong doing looks like? I doubt it.
me-oww!
They will force them to put Windows Media Player on all their hardware.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
already battered and cheated consumer.
me-oww!
Vincent Price was a eunuch?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
It's about time the courts went after Sony. It's a megalomaniacal company, bent only on taking over everything, even to the extent of suing theirtown customers. Assholes.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
From the DRAM suit. $4.23! Bought myself two candy bars.
is intended to be a factual statement
The REAL lesson here is...
The Consumer Electronic Industry needs to spend more money on lobbyists* so they can get a pass like the the oil, mining, chemical, agribiz, pharma, food processors, etc. etc. industries receive.
What the hell were they thinking?
*READ: Bribery
This doesn't mean much when a PC CD/DVD RW drive can be had for 20 bucks, and a CD/DVD RW + Blu Ray drive can be bought for $70. Are people aware there are now stand alone blu ray players for $100? Or stand alone DVD players for $35? What exactly is artificially high priced here? Should the CD/DVD RW drive be $10? The stand alone blu ray player should be $50? What is there to be outraged about, other than already inexpensive hardware can be purchased today?
Comments are closed on this entry