"No Re-Sale Allowed"?!

[disgaeniac]

Topic.

Wtf's the deal with companies (for decades now) marking swag/loot/Bonus LE/CE items as "Not for Resale"?   

Are 'they' just trying to set the "rules" for their chain/retail stores & distributors and/or are they *seriously* trying to dictate/influence what I can & can not do with my own items after I've bought, paid for, and received them? 

Is this actually enforce-able anywhere?

Always been curious about this (while happily & blatantly ignoring it:)

[foxhack]

There's various reasons for this.

Some companies don't want pack-in or bundled items to be split up and resold at a profit. Imagine someone buying a Genesis pack which included Sonic 1, only to open it and sell the Genesis & the Sonic game separately and get a profit?

Other times the items might have been given away as a gift at an event so they mark it somehow so it can't be sold. Since it was a gift.

Then there's places like Japan where everything you buy these days already has a "No Resale" thing since companies there don't want you to sell your games for any reason. I have no idea if that's enforced.

Then there's situations like PC software where the item might be tied to your computer (OEM software) or they don't want you to resell the stuff due to licensing reasons (you get your Windows OS super cheap for buying a computer. So you shouldn't resell it for a profit. Etc.)

I do believe some companies (PC ones) have gone after people for reselling NFR stuff, but only when it's done at a massive scale. ... and then there's dicks like Adobe, Rosetta Stone, and Autodesk who stop used sales on eBay / Amazon because they're assholes.

[badATchaos]

The video game police will be knocking on yo door

[MJMaranan]

As for items inside Collector's Edition or Limited Edition, I know GameStop throws those away.  Once bought, then later on gave, the Mass Effect 2 Collector's Edition for the Xbox 360 and realized the employee, who was my former co-worker, reaching for the garbage bin below the counter.  She informed me about GameStop throwing away extra contents and I was glad that I purchased the game before they were completely thrown out.

As for eBay, there are sellers who either sell items individually to make better profit or, at the very least, sell what contents they have.

[tripredacus]

NFRs typically refer to the retail channel, and do not typically apply to end-users. How about some examples...

Movie Preview releases... versions of movies on VHS or DVD (or BD I guess) that are sent to the media, video stores, etc. These are sent to the company as per an agreement with the movie company. These items are either to be kept or to be returned after being finished with it. If you watch one of these movies, it will pop up every 10 minutes or so saying to return the movie to the manufacturer.

NFR versions of software (Windows) are gift copies that are sent to companies. That company is not allowed to resell the product but can only give them as gifts to individuals. The individuals can do with what they please, but current release product can be pulled from sale if they were to be put on Ebay or Amazon. For example, you couldn't get away with selling an NFR of Windows 8 but XP would be fine.

NFR games (say Sonic the Hedgehog in the Genesis) were marked as such so that the retailers couldn't remove or substitute the cartridge and offer it for sale on its own. Once the product enters the secondary market, it can be sold as normal.

There are products, however, that are not allowed to be resold under any circumstances. Primary example of this is anything marked Intel Confidential (CPUs primarily) or engineering samples. Resale of these products are illegal (at least in the US) and must be returned to the manufacturer to be destroyed or recycled.

[scott]

Then there are food items that come boxed up and the individual packages are marked "Not for Retail Sale" so that vendors can't buy the boxed version of things and part them out for better profit / cost.