So many people bashing the concept of MAP seems weird to me, since I'm familiar with the subject (part of my job). MAP agreements generally don't stop any owner/consumer of a product from doing anything. It's purely applied to retailers, not consumers that want to sell their used stuff.
Ummm, also, if you never signed a retailer contract with Sony (or whoever else), you're not bound by MAP & can sell your old PS3 for $1 if you want - any lawyer that threatens you (an individual, not a business) about it is full of s**t. (Disclaimer, IMNAL).
In fact, MAP is good for the underdog, the Mom n Pop shops. Think about it - that's why W-Mort & Coozco want to kill it, because it slows them down in their quest to crush their competition & take over the world. It's intended to create a level playing field, but does allow price to fluctuate under certain conditions (easy to do).
To those comments that say - "if I have my own store I should be able to sell at any price I want! How dare any manufacturer tell me what to do!" -- Well, if you really had a store, you'd be begging all manufacturers to implement MAP, just to help you out.
The big-box stores buy in huge volume so they get lower prices. But, small shops can't do this, thus their cost of goods is higher & they must sell for a higher price to stay alive. The intent is to help the small guys by keeping the price at a level they can survive on & stopping the big guys from undercutting, or worse yet, from intentionally selling at a loss just to kill your little shop (& some big stores like it too, because they don't like price wars either).
Applying MAP to eBay seems absurd, UNLESS it's for a big eBay merchant that sells new products.
The "A" in MAP is the key. Standard MAP agreements allow anyone to sell for any price, as long as they say something like "price too low to print" in ads.
Also, any item that's not new (as in perfect), e.g. demo, scratch'n'dent, b-stock, returns, unboxed, open-box, or any type of used - can be any price (you must state it's condition)...So, as long as it's not NIB, (& especially if you never signed a contract that contained MAP provisions) eBay stuff should be exempt.
- Well, that's all based on my actual experience & what our legal dept has explained in the past. If anyone can point out specifics (especially example contracts) that differ from what I've stated, please reply to this comment since I'd really like to know more - especially if there are other things going on, like with MAP somehow being incorporated into DMCA (which would be odd).
