Japanese lawmakers to consumers: “F*ck you”
If you like old gadgets and electronics, Japan is the place for you. There are thousands of “recycle” shops across Japan that deal in various used goods. Gamers can shop for retro video game systems and games, musicians can buy the equipment they need, and poor gaijin can buy TV’s and household appliances. Recycle shops are fantastic.
After April 1, 2006 all of this will change. Japanese lawmakers, perhaps under pressure from electronics companies, passed a law that will ban the sale of many products produced before 2001. After April 1st, only products with the PSE sticker on them can be sold(the PSE sticker is on most products manufactured after 2001). The PSE sticker signifies that the manufacturer paid extra taxes and carried out in-house safety tests to verify that their product is “safe”. Logically, almost all electronics produced before the PSE sticker existed are dangerous.
If you are living in Japan, I advise you to rush to your nearest recycle shop and buy some electronics. Most shops are desperate to get rid of their pre-2001 electronics and are having special sales. There are bound to be some amazing deals.
Here are two articles on the subject:
From the Canoe Network:
In gadget-happy Japan, some second-hand sales to be bannedBy YURI KAGEYAMA
TOKYO (AP) – In gadget-loving Japan, the days of bargain-hunting for many second-hand electronics are about to end.
It’s all because of changes in safety regulations, but the move has drawn an outcry in some circles. Oscar-winning musician Ryuichi Sakamoto is leading a petition campaign in protest. At the centre of the controversy is a revision of a law regulating safety for appliances. Starting April 1, it will become illegal for retailers to sell 450 products manufactured before 2001, including TVs, audiovisual equipment, video-game machines, refrigerators and electric musical instruments.
Some products such as personal computers and portable digital music players, which have been regulated under separate standards, won’t be affected.
Japanese blogs have been full of some grumbling that the change really is designed to boost sales of new electronics goods, a gift for manufacturers.
But second-hand retailers say they won’t lose that much in sales because six-year-old products sell for pretty low prices. Demand isn’t that great in a country where the newest gadgets create a lot more excitement.
The system for overseeing safety standards for gadgets was changed in 2001, requiring products to carry a seal with “PSE,” which stands for “product safety of electrical appliance and material.”
Under an older system, the government carried out expansive tests on products. The new system relies on voluntary checks by manufacturers.
After a five-year transition period, which expires at the end of March, all products made before 2001 will be banned from resale.
Individual consumers can continue to own products manufactured before 2001 – that’s perfectly legal. And people can still sell the gadgets themselves, including with Internet auctions. Exporting such goods is also legal.
But doing that as a retail business in Japan will be a clear violation. Bureaucrats have already begun cracking down on retailers, urging them to take items off the shelves in preparation for the ban.
Those found guilty of failing to comply after administrative warnings face up to one year in prison and up to one million yen (US$8,600) in fines. A company could be hit with a fine of 100 million yen ($860,000).
Trade ministry official Kazuhisa Kakui acknowledged the banned products are safe because they were tested under the old system. He also knows some second-hand retailers are angry about the legal revision.
But he defended the ban as necessary for Japan to make a clean start with the new system.
“There is a clear purpose for adopting the new PSE mark,” Kakui said. “We need the stores to make a proper response.”
To Sakamoto, Academy Award-winning composer of the film score for The Last Emperor, there’s a different issue at stake: Used amplifiers, recording equipment, digital tape recorders and turntables are important tools for musicians.
He is urging people to sign a petition in protest of the PSE law, as the legal revision is now called. The Japan Synthesizer Programmers Association, which represents musicians, producers, engineers and teachers, has collected more than 50,000 signatures.
In a joint statement, Sakamoto and two other musicians in the association said the PSE law “will greatly hinder the development of Japanese music and artistic culture.”
And from the Japan Times:
‘THE WORST LAW EVER’Appliance resale ban no April Fools’ jokeBy MARK SCHREIBERWeekly Playboy (March 14)Tenka no akuho da! (the worst law ever), is Weekly Playboy’s take on Japan’s soon-to-take-effect PSE Law. Standing for “Product Safety of Electrical Appliance and Material,” the new law, which goes into force from April 1, prohibits the resale of electrical appliances produced prior to 2001.
We’re talking about nearly everything that runs on a household current, which the government has categorized into “designated” products (112 items that include electrical plugs, electric thermos jugs, massagers, AC adapters and others), and “non-designated” products (338 items that include irons, refrigerators, fans, VCRs, electric shavers, TV sets, electric toothbrushes and audio equipment etc.). If you’ve got one made before 2001, you can keep on using it; but sell one that doesn’t carry a PSE sticker and you can be fined up to 300,000 yen.
The law also applies to imported electrical items. At this point, the hodgepodge of conditions and exceptions to the PSE Law only seem to add to the confusion.
The new law is expected to be particularly hard on dealers of video-game units and electric musical instruments that are popular with die-hard fans and collectors. Businesses found in violation of the law can be fined even more heavily than individuals — up to 1 million yen. And hence Weekly Playboy’s outrage.
For musicians who want to reproduce the sound of the older analog-type synthesizers, for example, Weekly Playboy views the issue as a matter of life or death.
“I heard about it in the studio about a month ago and was shocked,” says musician Ryo Takagi. “It makes me feel really desolate not to be able to buy older products any more. There’s something weird about all of this.”
The law has already become a controversy in cultural circles, with musicians such as Ryuichi Sakamoto and others circulating a petition opposing it.
“For us, the news came as a real bolt from the blue,” says Tsuyoshi Nagahashi, president of “Hard Off,” a chain of recycle shops. Since Feb. 11, Nagahashi’s company has halted purchases of any goods that don’t bear a PSE seal to indicate a used product has passed a safety check.
“This law is about putting a priority on safety,” a source in the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Industry explains to the magazine. “It begins with the hypothesis that accidents are more likely to occur in used products. In other words, the revised law has not necessarily singled out these used products, but that the situation has been better clarified.”
But Ichiro Horinouchi, president of a Hamamatsu City-based chain of 44 recycle shops called Seikatsu Soko, remains unconvinced.
“It’s really suspicious that this law was put into effect for the purpose of ‘consumer protection,’ ” he complains. “Unlike the products made these days, which seem to be designed solely on cost-cutting criteria, many excellent older products can be found. And as long as customers want such products, we’ll find a way to accommodate them, while somehow complying with the law.”
Meanwhile, Weekly Playboy is convinced that in April — when the new law’s impact fully hits home to small-time sellers of used appliances — resentment will erupt in earnest.
