Lik Sang

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lik Sang Pacific Game Technology (Holding) Limited

Type	Defunct
Founded	1998
Headquarters	Hong Kong
Key people	Pascal Clarysse
Industry	Video games, consumer electronics
Products	import games, toys, figures, anime-related items, and obscure adapters and controllers for various game platforms.
Website	http://www.lik-sang.com/

Lik Sang (traditional Chinese: 力生; Cantonese Yale: lik6 sang1; literal: "powerful and energetic") was a popular distributor of Asian electronics. The company sold import games, toys, figures, anime-related items, and obscure adapters and controllers for various game platforms. Lik Sang closed as of October 24, 2006, as a direct result of multiple lawsuits filed against them by Sony.^[1]

[edit] History

Lik-Sang was established in 1998 in Hong Kong. It became well known for its sales of modchips for game consoles that enabled the normally locked-down consoles to play import and homebrew games (and, as a consequence, pirated games). The "modchips" were not all physical chips; they included devices such as flash cartridges that allow Game Boy users to upload ROMs and homebrew applications onto the device, and play them as if it were a regular gaming cartridge.

In 2002, the company was sued by major game console producers, such as Sony Computer Entertainment, Nintendo, and Microsoft, alleging contributory copyright infringement, since the mod chips (and other related devices) enabled playing of pirated game titles on those consoles. The court granted injunctions preventing Lik-Sang from selling these devices.^[2] After these suits, Lik-Sang began expanding its area of expertise by reinventing itself (under a new owner) as a vendor of legitimate, but obscure, accessories, such as consumer electronics, games, merchandise, and t-shirts.

In August of 2005, the company was once again in legal trouble, this time from Sony. Lik-Sang had imported PSPs from areas where they were available, and re-exported them to UK customers before the UK release date, which Sony alleged was a breach of their trademark rights.^[3] Lik-Sang continued shipping PSPs, claiming Hong Kong's laws allow an item to be traded freely once it appears in a market anywhere in the world.

On October 18, 2006, the High Court in London (Patents Court) ruled the shipments were indeed in breach of Sony's rights.^[4] The following day, Lik-Sang posted a message on their website claiming they had been forced out of business due to Sony's legal action. Sony responded in a statement^[5] saying that Lik-Sang had not contested the case, thus incurring no legal fees, and had not paid any damages or costs to Sony. However, Lik-Sang replied once more that their legal representatives spent over a year to contest the UK's court jurisdiction and tried to defend against Sony's allegations of parallel importation and copyright infringement, and that Sony launched duplicate actions in different countries. According to Lik-Sang's final statements,^[6]^[7] two different judges expressed their surprise about the high legal expenses claimed by Sony.

As of October 24, 2006, Lik-Sang's website has been offline, the only page remaining being that of a letter to former customers in regards to the ruling, and the circumstances surrounding it. The Lik-Sang forums have also been closed down.

Lik-Sang is widely known in console gaming circles. Some even form a verb with the name, as in "I could Lik-Sang the controller if I had the money", and cult game site Penny Arcade often spoke about Lik-Sang and featured them in their webcomics.^[8]

In 2006, popular internet satirist Maddox heavily criticised^[9] Sony, and the debacle over Lik Sang was one of his main points of contention. He satirically summed up the situation with the comment that Lik Sang "committed the mortal sin of selling Japanese PSPs to European gamers. Oh no! Not that!" He then went on to say that he had to do a "double take" when he first read it, because he couldn't believe that "Sony [was] suing to prevent people from selling PSPs", calling Sony "morons" and adding that their unnecessarily strict response to Lik Sang's sales did not make sense due to the US$1.7 billion loss the gaming division incurred during the quarter.