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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 4255172" data-attributes="member: 32740">But it really isn't an ethical responsibility of the consumer to police agreements between retailers, distributors and publishers.  Asking distributors and retailers to abide by street dates - well you're gonna get what you pay for.  It isn't as if street dates can't be well-policed though.  Agreements can be arranged such that everyone involved prior to the consumer has economic interest NOT to violate the agreement (see the arrangements for enforcing street dates for the Harry Potter books).  Violations may still happen but then it's kept (as it should be) an ethical matter for people OTHER than the consumer to worry about.Somebody check me if I'm wrong but it's up to the PUBLISHER to set and enforce penalties upon distributors for prematurely shipping to retailers.  The retailers agreements are with the distributors, not the original publishers.  It's therefore up to the distributors to set and enforce penalties upon retailers who break THEIR agreements.  It's generally not the ethical responsibility of the consumer - who has no control of these things - to monitor contractual agreements between everyone in the publishing pipeline.  Capitalist ethics, after all, would suggest that, short of ethical violations becoming so egregious as to be MORAL violations, it is in the consumers best interests to buy at the lowest cost at the earliest convenience.  If the publisher has OTHER interests at stake then it's the PUBLISHERS responsibility to arrange their affairs accordingly.Someone WILLFULLY violating the street date isn't at all ethical, but the degree to which it is UN-ethical depends on the level of harm being done AND the details of the agreements regarding the street date.  If there were no real penalities or means of enforcement it's in their short-term business interests to beat other retailers to market.  If all they get is a few people buying from them instead of another retailer then it certainly isn't the consumers ethical responsibility to teach them a lesson.  Besides, the ethical shenanigans are actually BAD business - not because of consumer reaction, but because by rights it should provoke a negative PUBLISHER/DISTRIBUTOR reaction.  Only if violating the street date can be seen to be significantly harmful to the publisher, distributor, or other retailers should it become an issue for the consumer.  As it is, the consumer still gets to weigh the early availability against actual costs.  In comparing Buy.com to Amazon.com I see that at this moment Buy.com's price is $7.27 higher (not including shipping costs) even if they are violating the street date.</blockquote>

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