Gamefly wins court case against Netflix and USPS

A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that Netflix Inc got an unfair advantage from the U.S. Postal Service's special handling of its DVDs, and ordered postal officials to remedy the discrimination or offer a good explanation.

The unanimous decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is a win for GameFly Inc, which said the postal service should treat the games it ships similarly to Netflix DVDs.

The court did not order a specific change in how the postal service handles digital disks, instead leaving it up to the Postal Regulatory Commission to determine an equitable solution.

"The commission must either remedy all discrimination or explain why any residual discrimination is due or reasonable," wrote Judge David Sentelle.

Neither Netflix nor GameFly immediately responded to requests for comment. The postal service also did not immediately respond.

Movie rental service Netflix appears to be the postal service's biggest DVD mailer customer, the court said. The service processes Netflix DVDs by hand and with specially designated containers.

"Rather obviously, this is not without cost to the postal service. Nonetheless, the service provides it to Netflix free of charge," Sentelle wrote.

GameFly, which mails primarily video games for rent, asked for the same treatment, but the postal service refused, forcing GameFly to make adjustments that cost millions of dollars each year, the court said.

The Postal Regulatory Commission, which oversees the service, sided with GameFly in 2011 but failed to put the two companies on the same footing, the court said.

The case is GameFly Inc v. Postal Regulatory Commission, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, No. 11-1179.

Source

Hopefully this will result in better shipping speeds. (I'm talking about the hand-off between GameFly/USPS or Customer/USPS, not the fulfillment of the game as that is based on availability).

Sometimes I return a game and it took a week and a half to get from point A to point B. That's not even counting the time it takes for Gamefly to process the return. It usually gets to me pretty quick, but good luck getting decent shipping times on the way back.

Usually takes 1-2 days there and 1-2 days back. I'm hoping USPS utilizes that FastReturn more often, I don't see it often like I used to.

netflix still does DVD service?

Yep, blu-ray > then streaming.

Wait, they don't charge Netflix for shipping? [pic]

Guess I know why they overcharge so much for their unreliable service, now.

What a fail... USPS is going broke while they handing out freebies to Netflix.

Obviously. But most people don't give a damn about quality. I can't stand that streaming !!. Plus you can only stream !! that has been out for a decade.

The shipping itself isn't free of charge, its the sorting and other special treatment mentioned in the article that USPS doesn't charge for.

I work for the USPS and neither gets shipped any different... They both get shipped as first class mail (along with blockbuster DVDs). The only thing is (at least where I work) that Netflix ships in so much bulk that they get processed differently but never shipped different

do u work at the processing plant or at a actual post office? because at the process plant i worked at they got sorted differently

I'm in a processing plant

I shipped my Gamefly game back the other day, took like 4-5 days to get there instead of the normal 3 [pic] I can't blame it on anything, just felt slow. Anyways, I cancelled my Gamefly, that service is nice if you can get a good deal (sometimes they do $1 months), I was able to get 3 months trial subscription and I cancelled with 23 days left or some !!. I had Black Ops 2 waiting in my GameQ for damn near a week and it never shipped, I emailed them and complained and it finally shipped. After that I knew I was gonna cancel and not let them charge my CC.

They defiantly get processed differently where I live. I had an issue with Netflix and called my post office and talked to my actual mail carrier. They hand count ALL Netflix dvds both at the local mail office and my mail carrier had a count that she kept as she delivered and they are supposed to match up when they turn them in. They had special slots for Netflix dvds when people dropped off mail. Hell you can get them to scan the bar code on your dvd and Netflix would send out your dvd before they physically received it. So yeah, I say they get treated differently.