Will buy.com get sued?

[ShadowyFigure]

They were print masters, I mean... come on you can copy and paste from those babies... They were also available on places such rs and mf....

 

[ExploderWizard]

I don't see how cutting off buy.com hurts Hasbro. It's not like the books aren't made available to customers through other online (or brick-and-mortar) storefronts. I doubt that any potential customers will avoid purchasing D&D books simply because they're not listed at buy.com.

Given that this isn't the first time that they've screwed up like this, It's entirely possible that not just WotC, but other (more important) book publishers might refuse to sell to them.

Hasbro isn't hurt by this at all. They have already made thier money on those books. It is other retailers, both brick and mortar, and online who are hurt by this. Someone at buy.com probably looked at the contract, did the math, and decided the orders would more than make up for any penalty. They are so large and books such a small part of everything they sell that it wasn't a big deal to them.

All brick and mortar stores are suffering now, not just the game shops. I am willing to bet that a large percentage of those who buy online don't report those purchases and pay sales tax. On a large group purchase, even at full price, the lack of sales tax charged can be a decent savings, especially since such orders often include free shipping.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I am willing to bet that a large percentage of those who buy online don't report those purchases and pay sales tax.

I'll set the "don't pay" over/under at 93 percent.

 

[pedr]

Does US law allow for the enforcement of penalty clauses?

English contract law does not - you cannot enforce a contractual term which requires the payment of more than actual loss (or a genuine pre-determined estimate of actual loss to save the expense of calculating actual loss) as a result of breach. Under English law, the main sanction would be WotC's freedom to not contract with this company in future. I suppose you could have a more convoluted arrangement by which ownership doesn't transfer until a particular date even if possession does but I recall from the mists of my property law classes too many years ago now that this is not without its difficulties!

 

[Contents May Vary]

I wonder (Potter + D&D + whatever else) at what point this can become a class action, if at all.

There isn't really a good reason for that. Neither Hasbro nor Rowling's publisher would be unduly burdened by the cost of legal counsel. Even if one started a Class Action the other wouldn't have any reason to join it.

It's not the publishers who suffer. It's the shops who had the items available later than the ones who released too early. We've already seen lots of people posting that they'd changed their orders from wherever they originally had the items ordered, to Buy.com.

These rules on release dates are also to protect the smaller shops who take a bit longer to get things in stock. Imagine if shops could sell stuff as soon as they got hold of it, and further imagine that the big chain shops with better distribution networks could generally get hold of stuff faster than your small friendly local game stores. That would really hurt the small game stores!

 

[Mr Jack]

English contract law does not - you cannot enforce a contractual term which requires the payment of more than actual loss (or a genuine pre-determined estimate of actual loss to save the expense of calculating actual loss) as a result of breach.

IANAL, but I was under the impression that applied only to contracts with individuals, not contracts between businesses?

 

[Cirex]

They may have to pay a fine, but that depends on the current relation between Hasbro and Buy.com.

Whoever took the decision for the early shipping is either stupid or a genious. Look at how many people cancelled their pre-orders to order from buy.com. Buy's slice of the cake is probably the bigger one, while amazon one shrank.

 

[malraux]

Well, according to some threads, the torrents aren't scans but print files (with colour swatches, high-res and so on).

So it's either coincidence OR the guy who has got hold of the printer files thought he could get away with it after the real books shipped, as it could look like a very good scan (which is, of course, a stupid assumption!).

That or he figured it wasn't a big deal since the books were already out there. In practice, these were going to be out there within a few days of the books shipping anyway.

 

[Ingolf]

Do you think buy.com is going to get some legal action over this?

A better questions might be, are they still shipping early, or has Hasbro lowered the boom on them?

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Yes, contract law in every US jurisdiction I know of permits (encourages, even, because actual damages can take a lot of time and expense to calculate) liquidated damages. Note that this is distinct from a "penalty clause," which has a very negative meaning in US contract law. (In short, a liquidated damages clause is intended to make the non-breacher whole, while a penalty clause is intended to punish the party in breach.)

Liquidated damages have to be calculated reasonably, but in a contract between corporations, things would have to be seriously out of whack before a court would invalidate a liquidated damages clauses for unreasonableness. (Corporations are more or less assumed to know what they're doing ... or at least are assumed to have the duty to know what they're doing.)