http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1742110,00.html

Secondhand gadgets win reprieve from Japan’s “worst law ever”

The proposed banning of pre-owned electrical goods spelt disaster for Japan’s retro games and music sales before an unprecedented U-turn

Ollie Barder
Thursday March 30, 2006
The Guardian

Are old electrical goods dangerous just by virtue of being old? The Japanese government clearly thinks so. Almost five years ago, it fired a warning shot across the bow of the secondhand electrical goods industry with the cheerfully named Electrical Appliance and Material Safety Law, a motion passed in the Diet in early 2001.

The aim: the eradication of the supposedly dangerous and aged electrical goods finding their way on to the secondhand market. Who could possibly object?

The law was due to come into full force at the end of this week, replacing and updating the Electrical Appliance and Material Control Law, passed in 1999.

The more recent law caused more consternation, though. It would ban the sale of goods manufactured before the year 2001, unless they fulfilled a safety test – which in many cases could cost several times more than the item was now worth.

The Japanese secondhand electrical goods market was officially estimated last year to be worth around £500m – though this figure isn’t close to being accurate; it’s much more lucrative. The ambiguity is due to the lack of regulation of secondhand shops and their quick turnover. Shops are often gone from one month to the next.

The government probably hoped the law would go largely unnoticed and bring a variety of benefits. By taking the money out of the secondhand market and injecting it into the market for new goods, regulation (of old products) and revivalisation (of the economy) would be achieved in one fell swoop. On paper, anyway.

In practice it was rather different. Public resistance has been vociferous and virtually unanimous. Famous Japanese musicians such as Ryuichi Sakamoto led a 75,000-strong petition, stating in the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper that “whether something is vintage or not is not a matter for government officials to decide”.

Musicians particularly despised the law because new instruments are almost always beyond the meagre means of budding musicians. Putting secondhand electronic instruments beyond their reach would kill a vibrant music industry. Sakamoto backed this up further in a joint statement with the Japan Synthesizer Programmers Association, saying: “This will greatly hinder the development of Japanese music and artistic culture.”

The law would also have affected the sale of secondhand and classic gaming hardware.

Musicians, gamers; add in a large swath of the press citing this law as simply the “worst law ever” and the government had a big problem on its hands.

So on March 14, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry agreed to conduct the safety tests free of charge for six months, and rent out the testing equipment. It even exempted the hotly contested “vintage” musical instruments.

However, while the musicians were now safe, the shop owners appeared terminally threatened. As one told the Daily Yomiuri newspaper: “I didn’t know of the measure until recently, and now I’m almost out of business.”

With the law’s implementation looming, there was panic buying and emergency sales of secondhand stock. Not quite the stealth law hoped for.

Thus last Friday the law was revised, making 1989 the cut-off date for “old” rather than 2001. In addition, many of the older items won’t have to be certified with the requisite safety tests either. It was an almost complete reversal – something that is almost without precedent in Japan.

Had the law gone ahead unchanged, on April 1 more than 450 types of electrical appliances would have been deemed unsafe in Japan. The ban would have released a flood of secondhand games, gaming hardware and musical instruments on to the export market. As it is, if you want to import that rare piece of gaming or musical heritage, it will still cost you a small fortune.

good old Ryuichi Sakamoto…