Money for nothing and your kicks for free.

It may not be an excuse, but unless you think the government should control resale prices, no amount of indignation will change the fact that it will happen.

Nope. But they're still assholes for doing it.

I put serious thought into buying a spare copy of one of the World of Warcraft collector editions so I could eBay it. Decided not to screw over someone trying to get it for personal use.

My sister with up a Black Friday sale to get me a limited edition gold Legend of Zelda Nintendo DS the year the Wii was really popular. When she got to the counter, the salesclerk reached for a Wii. (That's what everyone else was in line for, pretty much.) She said she thought for about 2 seconds about taking it, selling it for 2 or 3 times what she paid for it, and getting herself something nice, but there were people outside waiting.

A friend of ours bought a PS3 that he ended up selling to a frantic woman before he even left the store. (In his defense, she wasn't there when he bought it; he worked there and had bought it on lunch.)

I understand the nature of supply and demand, but artificially reducing supply to make your item more valuable is kind of a dick thing to do.

Just because something's not illegal doesn't make it right. There's this whole MASSIVE area between "what a good idea" and "you should go to jail for that." Which is a good thing. But we still need to recognize that it's a continuum. Scalping tickets isn't the same as kicking puppies, but it's still selfish and (hopefully) thoughtlessly cruel.

This times a thousand.

For most goods like this, no, government shouldn't. There are some cases I would make exceptions for (and some/all of those exist in law to varying degrees, your mileage may vary depending on country). I think government should have limits on how much interest can be charged for loans. In Canada that limit is ridiculously high - at 60% - and oh you should hear the payday loan companies whine and complain about how they can't make enough profit kicking people when they are down with such a low rate of interest. Similarly there should be laws against selling other people, no matter how much you'd rather have that new Star Wards DVD than your 5th-born child.

But going back to the example of collective goods, my "indignation" may not stop the shithead asswipes from being shithead asswipes, but blaming the buyers for having brought it on themselves for being reluctantly willing to pay the price that has been artificially raised (because their only other option is going without) does not change the fact that predatory shithead asswipe scalpers deliberately creating scarcity to get better prices are preadorty parasitic asswipe shithead scalpers. Even if they are not breaking any laws.

Also, since I'm on a rant here, might I add that I don't like "blame the buyer" for it's similarities to other "blame the person getting hosed" scenarios that are oh so common in our society and part of the shitty "if something bad happened you must have done something to have it coming" attitude that is sometimes all to prevalent at certain times and is entirely full of shit at all times.

The government doesn't have to, the organisation can do it. Just sell with the explicit contract that says that resale must be through the organisation (or their appointed outlet; have a clause to cope with the organisation etc. going out of business). That's what a lot of ticket sales places are doing, so if anyone tries to sell on eBay or whatever they get sued for breach of contract. And if anyone sets up an eBay shop selling them before they are even out they can be done for fraud because they will never have them to sell.

The real collectors won't care, it will only hit those who are speculating on 'futures' or buying to make a profit. And if you don't like the contract, don't buy, no one's forcing you to do so, there are no 'unfair' conditions.

Contracts might not help. The suits would be complicated, and frankly kind of piddling as lawsuits go, so the organization might not want to go into the effort of tracking down every purchaser and suing them all.

Especially given that the person we're trying to protect is the third party, the person who shells out to the scalper. They wouldn't be a party to the contract, and now they actually have the dolls, so what are you going to do--take it back? (Note: you can't actually do that, because the third party wasn't involved in the contract.) The scalper would, upon reselling, be in breach of the contract, but the remedy would be...well, none, really. Damages, but there are none.

Not to mention, those types of contracts--the limits on resale--might be void as unconscionable.

(Sorry. You caught me during bar review studying, and we did Contracts and Sales yesterday and the day before.)

Well, no, you can't do much after they've sold it. And I woudn't anyway, the person who bought it now has it at a price they were willing to pay. If someone thinks that something is worth three times (or 300, or 3 million for that matter, look at the price for some old 'penny' stamps) its original cost and is willing to pay it, fine, that's their choice of what makes them happy.

The time to catch the scammers is before the resale, when the scammer advertises, or even better before the actual release when the speculators are advertising something they don't have yet (which, as far as I'm concerned, is fraud).

Certainly the "no resale" conditions do work in the UK, at least partially (which means that they are better than having nothing). Major festivals like Glastonbury do that, and something similar is being done for the Olympics (being national, though, that's almost a government enforcement, but it's actually being done without any extra laws through civil means). Of course, they do have an advantage in that the 'goods' have an explicit expiry date (tickets aren't worth much after the event!) but similar can be done with 'real' goods.

IANAL,NDIPOOTV.