Just buying something simple from Amazon that isn't allowed in Europe can get you in trouble.
I bought a harmless essential oil once for aromatherapy, it's really common, it's not dangerous, it grows in many European forests.......but I got a call from Police to go to the police station.
I was questioned for 20 minutes by a police officer and customs person, why I was buying "medication". (it isn't like in the movies where they shine a light on you btw, it's just a guy talking to you trying to do his job)
Customs apprehended my package, they knew very well it was a harmless oil, but it wasn't legal to buy here for whatever reason. I was released once they understood it was a harmless mistake. I was asked to sign several forms, saying I didn't know it was illegal, that I freely gave up the package and that I didn't do trade in illegal substances.
Needless to say, I don't do aromatherapy anymore, and I never buy something from another country I'm not sure about, before checking with police.
Shipping a physical product is very different from a purely digital transaction. If you ship a physical product to France, then you know very well that you're dealing with French laws. It's easy for sites to say, we don't ship to such and such locations, and they commonly do exactly that. But that's not so easy to do with purely digital products.
Actually, in the United States, states can only collect sales tax on Internet transactions if the company has a physical presence in the state. That means that a mom and pop shop can sell stuff online throughout the United States while only needing to be aware of the sales tax laws where they live. It would be basically impossible for such a site to exist if they had to learn the fine details of ten thousand separate sales tax jurisdictions (and yes, it really is right around there) just for the United States alone. That's precisely why Amazon has lobbied to change federal law to allow states to collect sales tax on everything: to drive smaller competitors out of business because they can't handle the complex sales tax laws.
Yes and that is a problem, but countries simply cannot afford anymore for their citizens to buy abroad without paying tax instead of buying same goods at home with tax.
Tax-free shooping of digital (and sometimes even physical) goods in other countries via online shops was tolerable because for many years it was relatively small amount (comparable with normal local shopping) + it was hard to build a framework to tax it.
This era came to an end because of how many sales are online atm. There is no returning it. Be ready that in USA you'll have local tax in internet based on who the buyer is and not who/where the seller is too.
Big downside to that is that this cripple smaller sellers and is good for corporations, but if you want to make it better for smaller sellers then you need support some solutions that will make tax collection for small/medium enterprises from many countries/states much easier&cheaper rather than trying to defend old staus quo in which businesses did not have to care about foreigner buying their stuff in their store.
Because that is not coming back. Ever.
Within the United States, the restrictions on states collecting sales taxes on Internet sales is because of a federal law. This is part of the US government's constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. And unlike the way "interstate commerce" has been stretched to mean "whatever the government feels like doing today" by various court decisions, this actually is dealing with interstate commerce. But I do expect it to change as you said just because interstate commerce is becoming so common.
As for collecting taxes for international sales, that sounds like a good thing to have treaties about. With physical shipments, customs can get involved, but for purely digital sales, it's much harder.
I don't think the sellers are following the law. All I know is that customs here don't take shipped items that aren't supposed to be here lightly.
Exactly. Governments, customs, etc., regulate that sort of thing. Trying to apply every law in the world to a company just because it sells on the internet is ridiculous. It would effectively destroy nearly every company in the world.
That is what we are talking about however. That is the law. And it is why trade treaties are popular with businesses. As for companies being destroyed no that is how it was. Companies operated at a national level.
Major sellers know about the obligation. The "sorry I didn't realise I was selling poison" argument doesn't work. (And I don't mean "poison" - although food labeling and electrical safety could have serious consequence - probably why fines on retailers "unknowingly" selling illegal (i.e. non-safe) batteries are becoming very high (as in 100% of revenue).They blow up, they cause fires.
As for collecting taxes for international sales, that sounds like a good thing to have treaties about. With physical shipments, customs can get involved, but for purely digital sales, it's much harder.
The laws will catch up eventually and stop making a distinction between digital good and physical goods.
For example take Star Citizen and how they now have to collect on VAT, or how I can't order from newegg.com but have to instead use newegg.ca
Right now the internet and sales of this nature are still in the "wild wild west" era but that wont last forever.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Valve sells stuff over the internet. French law forces Valve to change the way they sell things in France. Valve has to jump through French hoops. Valve makes a decision: either they stop selling in France entirely or they continue to sell to them anyway under their laws.
It may just turn into too much of a hassle and Valve may decide to abandon the market. This may also lead other services like Origin/Blizzard/whoever to leave the market as well. If this is the approach companies start taking, there are likely going to be a lot of upset French people. Companies have a lot of power in this situation in my opinion.
As for collecting taxes for international sales, that sounds like a good thing to have treaties about. With physical shipments, customs can get involved, but for purely digital sales, it's much harder.
The laws will catch up eventually and stop making a distinction between digital good and physical goods.
For example take Star Citizen and how they now have to collect on VAT, or how I can't order from newegg.com but have to instead use newegg.ca
Right now the internet and sales of this nature are still in the "wild wild west" era but that wont last forever.
I don't think digital and physical goods will ever have the same status, at least not in our forseeable future. I do think how digital goods and trade will continue to evolve, but not the same as physical goods. They have different properties. They aren't the same.
Well that's the essence of the problem and the debate: it's the same game once it's installed whether from physical or digital purchase. Hence the debate and confusion over the issue when you can resell one but not the other.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Within the United States, the restrictions on states collecting sales taxes on Internet sales is because of a federal law. This is part of the US government's constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. And unlike the way "interstate commerce" has been stretched to mean "whatever the government feels like doing today" by various court decisions, this actually is dealing with interstate commerce. But I do expect it to change as you said just because interstate commerce is becoming so common.
As for collecting taxes for international sales, that sounds like a good thing to have treaties about. With physical shipments, customs can get involved, but for purely digital sales, it's much harder.
As for USA, I am not an expert on USA taxes system, but I am sure that sooner or later a situation in which people from State A buy stuff from firms located in State B because it is cheaper cause State A has a local tax while State B either does not or is much smaller will simply cease to exist. With more and more people buying goods via internet orders whether those goods are digital or are physcial and delivered by mail/courier instead of shopping by themself personally "on the ground" this situation will be dealt with. Whether this will be via mutual deals made between states or whether it will be federal govermet trying to enforce some common tax system for online/mail order goods is a detail, but it will happen imho. Simply because this is too much money going away to other state not only in tax, but also less revenue for local businesses, etc
Anyway some treaties already were made. That is why many sites already do collect
taxes from purcharses made by foreign citizens. Either they do that or
they don't sell to people from certain countries / outside of certain
countries. This is not only EU, but also applies in many places for
Japan, South Korean, etc citizens.
This is of course in cases
when payment method or/and IP can identify which country consumer comes
from. Which most common payment methods for online shopping like credit
cards, debit cards, PayPal and many PayPal-like payment system already
does.
I don’t understand why this even matters to anyone and seems
like a complete waste of time and resources.
Is there a big market out there for used pc games ? if you are really concerned about resell
value maybe you should go back to consoles and not buy off steam.
I don’t understand why this even matters to anyone and seems
like a complete waste of time and resources.
Is there a big market out there for used pc games ? if you are really concerned about resell
value maybe you should go back to consoles and not buy off steam.
There is a HUGE market for used games. However, 99% of this discussion is not relevant to any of this, it mostly a discussion of how companies need to operate in a multi national business environment. It is my (professional) opinion that most of it is uneducated discussion, and not very accurate.
Good corperate entities have been royaly screwing people in the rear ends since the dawn of time. Hell we even consider them a person in the US. Its about time we start fighting these greedy companies trying to ensure they can keep digging into our pocketbooks and in this case making our game we bought theirs.
Good corperate entities have been royaly screwing people in the rear ends since the dawn of time. Hell we even consider them a person in the US. Its about time we start fighting these greedy companies trying to ensure they can keep digging into our pocketbooks and in this case making our game we bought theirs.
/quadruple_facepalm
You can simply not buy anything from Steam.
Or I can stand up for our rights and not give in because it hurts their profit margin when they are racking in billions. I don't understand why a consumer would be more than willing to give up their rights. I guess it is why we get half assed games and day 1 DLC because people are complacent about it or in this case actually shill for it.
I donno about all this but I do know the largest Private/Pirated World of Warcraft server is ran in one of these countries and is protected by their laws and not caring about enforcing or honouring the laws from the other country....is this all some sort of new double standard?
I don’t understand why this even matters to anyone and seems
like a complete waste of time and resources.
Is there a big market out there for used pc games ? if you are really concerned about resell
value maybe you should go back to consoles and not buy off steam.
There is a HUGE market for used games. However, 99% of this discussion is not relevant to any of this, it mostly a discussion of how companies need to operate in a multi national business environment. It is my (professional) opinion that most of it is uneducated discussion, and not very accurate.
You should share some of those and your perspective.
I have... but they are not controversial enough to draw attention. Here are some examples:
I don’t understand why this even matters to anyone and seems
like a complete waste of time and resources.
Is there a big market out there for used pc games ? if you are really concerned about resell
value maybe you should go back to consoles and not buy off steam.
There is a HUGE market for used games. However, 99% of this discussion is not relevant to any of this, it mostly a discussion of how companies need to operate in a multi national business environment. It is my (professional) opinion that most of it is uneducated discussion, and not very accurate.
You should share some of those and your perspective.
I have... but they are not controversial enough to draw attention. Here are some examples:
Well then, let's see if I can make your post more controversial and therefore draw more attention. This lawsuit caused Star Wars Galaxies to have an NGE, caused City of Heroes to shut down, and is stopping more good sandboxes from being made. </sarcasm>
Good corperate entities have been royaly screwing people in the rear ends since the dawn of time. Hell we even consider them a person in the US. Its about time we start fighting these greedy companies trying to ensure they can keep digging into our pocketbooks and in this case making our game we bought theirs.
/quadruple_facepalm
You can simply not buy anything from Steam.
Or I can stand up for our rights and not give in because it hurts their profit margin when they are racking in billions. I don't understand why a consumer would be more than willing to give up their rights. I guess it is why we get half assed games and day 1 DLC because people are complacent about it or in this case actually shill for it.
You do not have a "right" to purchase a product or service.
You have the option to buy something on their terms and a right to not purchase from them.
While some gov't control is necessary, less is generally better and in this case demanding the ability to resell your digital purchase crosses the line IMO.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Good corperate entities have been royaly screwing people in the rear ends since the dawn of time. Hell we even consider them a person in the US. Its about time we start fighting these greedy companies trying to ensure they can keep digging into our pocketbooks and in this case making our game we bought theirs.
/quadruple_facepalm
You can simply not buy anything from Steam.
Or I can stand up for our rights and not give in because it hurts their profit margin when they are racking in billions. I don't understand why a consumer would be more than willing to give up their rights. I guess it is why we get half assed games and day 1 DLC because people are complacent about it or in this case actually shill for it.
You do not have a "right" to purchase a product or service.
You have the option to buy something on their terms and a right to not purchase from them.
While some gov't control is necessary, less is generally better and in this case demanding the ability to resell your digital purchase crosses the line IMO.
That's a neo-liberal supposition, an assumption based on a belief in the free market. The reality is that if the gov don't effect controls through regulation private entities effect control themselves. The idea that the gov should not have a hard and heavy-handed role in the operation of the markets is a flawed assumption that has been demonstrated across various industries over the course of the last 100-200 years to be a huge mistake time and time again.
@Superman0X - Thanks, I missed them before. It's easy to do in the deluge.
I lol'd at the Eurogamer sub-heading: "German consumer group fails to blow off Steam." Very witty.
The security measures Steam put in place seem reasonable and maybe they will find a way with those sorts of measures to allow players to sell games on the Steam Market.
How do you see these changes adversely affecting EU customers? Do you think they will affect all Steam users? On paper this sounds like it would be a huge win for consumers, but I'm personally skeptical because companies always find a way to pass costs on. I'm also concerned about the potential impact on smaller players.
The short answer is that likely nothing will come of all this.
However, should there be any short term pressure because of this, then it is likely to be very bad for the customer. In the long term, we should expect to see more options for the exchange of digital goods (which have already started) for everyone (not just EU).
Good corperate entities have been royaly screwing people in the rear ends since the dawn of time. Hell we even consider them a person in the US. Its about time we start fighting these greedy companies trying to ensure they can keep digging into our pocketbooks and in this case making our game we bought theirs.
/quadruple_facepalm
You can simply not buy anything from Steam.
Or I can stand up for our rights and not give in because it hurts their profit margin when they are racking in billions. I don't understand why a consumer would be more than willing to give up their rights. I guess it is why we get half assed games and day 1 DLC because people are complacent about it or in this case actually shill for it.
You do not have a "right" to purchase a product or service.
You have the option to buy something on their terms and a right to not purchase from them.
While some gov't control is necessary, less is generally better and in this case demanding the ability to resell your digital purchase crosses the line IMO.
Thats is wrong on so many levels, and that stance has been digested and ended up being just as fresh as product of digestion is.
If we make a contract, all laws apply, whether you like it or not. You want to make a pile of money, you have an option of not making a pile of money too if you dont want to deal with legislature and consumer rights.
Well then, let's see if I can make your post more controversial and therefore draw more attention. This lawsuit caused Star Wars Galaxies to have an NGE, caused City of Heroes to shut down, and is stopping more good sandboxes from being made. </sarcasm>
I appreciate the though... but lets try to keep it to TRUE statements...
Valve sells stuff over the internet. French law forces Valve to change the way they sell things in France. Valve has to jump through French hoops. Valve makes a decision: either they stop selling in France entirely or they continue to sell to them anyway under their laws.
It may just turn into too much of a hassle and Valve may decide to abandon the market. This may also lead other services like Origin/Blizzard/whoever to leave the market as well. If this is the approach companies start taking, there are likely going to be a lot of upset French people. Companies have a lot of power in this situation in my opinion.
It may look like that at first glance, but Valve would be expected to either follow French law with everything they already sold, or compensate all the people that made purchases. All that just to leave a market, losing potential profit. Other companies would not be bowing out at that point, they would be clamoring for Valve's share of that market. Selling digital goods is insanely lucrative right now, and it will continue to be even after Valve adjusts to french laws. They already changed their refund policy to accommodate Germany, we will see them accommodating France as well.
Also, I do not see how Superman is guessing this will not help French consumers. Valve has already changed their refund policy thanks to another lawsuit*, and Valve has already been testing the waters with sharing games. This is heading towards a very favorable result for the consumers. Worst case scenario for consumers, France wins on the account statements but not the reselling. Valve has already been focusing on Account Security recently and is in a good position to adjust to French laws there.
good luck, I think bruce willis tried this and lost with itunes, as you dont own any itunes music so if you die you cant will it on.
Lucky for Bruce that he is "Unbreakable" then.
But yeah, it sucks. No wonder people either torrent the mp3s or stream them with Spotify or something similar.
In Steams case they really either should let you access all games for a monthly fee or let you own the games you pay for. But at least Steam works, Origin have the same models but buggs out all the time as well. I have skipped buying games I wanted because it would have forced me to use origin.
Comments
As for collecting taxes for international sales, that sounds like a good thing to have treaties about. With physical shipments, customs can get involved, but for purely digital sales, it's much harder.
That is what we are talking about however. That is the law. And it is why trade treaties are popular with businesses. As for companies being destroyed no that is how it was. Companies operated at a national level.
Major sellers know about the obligation. The "sorry I didn't realise I was selling poison" argument doesn't work. (And I don't mean "poison" - although food labeling and electrical safety could have serious consequence - probably why fines on retailers "unknowingly" selling illegal (i.e. non-safe) batteries are becoming very high (as in 100% of revenue).They blow up, they cause fires.
For example take Star Citizen and how they now have to collect on VAT, or how I can't order from newegg.com but have to instead use newegg.ca
Right now the internet and sales of this nature are still in the "wild wild west" era but that wont last forever.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Valve sells stuff over the internet.
French law forces Valve to change the way they sell things in France.
Valve has to jump through French hoops.
Valve makes a decision: either they stop selling in France entirely or they continue to sell to them anyway under their laws.
It may just turn into too much of a hassle and Valve may decide to abandon the market. This may also lead other services like Origin/Blizzard/whoever to leave the market as well. If this is the approach companies start taking, there are likely going to be a lot of upset French people. Companies have a lot of power in this situation in my opinion.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
As for USA, I am not an expert on USA taxes system, but I am sure that sooner or later a situation in which people from State A buy stuff from firms located in State B because it is cheaper cause State A has a local tax while State B either does not or is much smaller will simply cease to exist.
With more and more people buying goods via internet orders whether those goods are digital or are physcial and delivered by mail/courier instead of shopping by themself personally "on the ground" this situation will be dealt with. Whether this will be via mutual deals made between states or whether it will be federal govermet trying to enforce some common tax system for online/mail order goods is a detail, but it will happen imho. Simply because this is too much money going away to other state not only in tax, but also less revenue for local businesses, etc
Anyway some treaties already were made. That is why many sites already do collect taxes from purcharses made by foreign citizens. Either they do that or they don't sell to people from certain countries / outside of certain countries. This is not only EU, but also applies in many places for Japan, South Korean, etc citizens.
This is of course in cases when payment method or/and IP can identify which country consumer comes from. Which most common payment methods for online shopping like credit cards, debit cards, PayPal and many PayPal-like payment system already does.
Maybe you have not noticed cause you're in US.
I don’t understand why this even matters to anyone and seems like a complete waste of time and resources.
Is there a big market out there for used pc games ? if you are really concerned about resell value maybe you should go back to consoles and not buy off steam.
MurderHerd
MurderHerd
Steam has a local presence in the EU (Luxembourg).
Steam has to comply with EU laws if it wants to do business in the EU.
Steam has recently settled part of this issue in Germany (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-02-07-court-favours-valve-in-not-allowing-digital-content-resells)
The recent trigger issue is the amount of accounts hacked (http://store.steampowered.com/news/19618/)
Any changes forced by this issue will likely not be (immediately) favorable to EU consumers.
You have the option to buy something on their terms and a right to not purchase from them.
While some gov't control is necessary, less is generally better and in this case demanding the ability to resell your digital purchase crosses the line IMO.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
However, should there be any short term pressure because of this, then it is likely to be very bad for the customer. In the long term, we should expect to see more options for the exchange of digital goods (which have already started) for everyone (not just EU).
If we make a contract, all laws apply, whether you like it or not. You want to make a pile of money, you have an option of not making a pile of money too if you dont want to deal with legislature and consumer rights.
Also, I do not see how Superman is guessing this will not help French consumers. Valve has already changed their refund policy thanks to another lawsuit*, and Valve has already been testing the waters with sharing games. This is heading towards a very favorable result for the consumers. Worst case scenario for consumers, France wins on the account statements but not the reselling. Valve has already been focusing on Account Security recently and is in a good position to adjust to French laws there.
*http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Valve-Sued-By-ACCC-Over-Digital-Refund-Policy-67017.html
But yeah, it sucks. No wonder people either torrent the mp3s or stream them with Spotify or something similar.
In Steams case they really either should let you access all games for a monthly fee or let you own the games you pay for. But at least Steam works, Origin have the same models but buggs out all the time as well. I have skipped buying games I wanted because it would have forced me to use origin.