Tim Jarrett says: “We are at war, and Sony fired first. Boycott Sony.”
To that end, he’s set up The Sony Boycott Blog. Tim picks up on my four (now five) things Sony should do right away and adds this perceptive observation:
I think that’s a start. But to do that, Sony has to understand why what it did was wrong. And to do that, it has to stop the spin and the press releases and start talking—and listening—to customers, and understand why they want to put music that they purchased on their iPods, and why Sony shouldn’t view that as a threat but instead as an opportunity.
Both of us are too optimistic, I fear.
My hope is that this is the act of overreaching that will finally push the public and lawmakers to rein in the out-of-control media industry. Suing 14-year-olds is bad, but in those cases an observer could say, “Well, the kids were illegally downloading music files…” Here, the people who are actually buying the product and following the rules that the music industry insists on are the ones being punished. That’s insane.
Ed Bott 
Well, ALCEI (Electronic Frontiers Italy) sued SONY here in Italy for the rootkit. You can find the text of the lawsuit sent to our finance police here: http://www.alcei.org/index.php/archives/105.
Here http://www.alcei.org/index.php/archives/106 you can find a document explaining the position of ALCEI. Both are in italian, but babelfish can help a bit.
I hope they mop the floor with the sleazy bastards.
I myself have instituted a personal Sony boycott. I’d LOVE to buy that nice HD monitor, but I guess I’ll have to go with someone else. I’d dump our PS2 if the wife would let me. It certainly puts the kibosh on my planned purchase of a PSP and a Sony HDTV. I’m sure they won’t feel the loss of a $1,500 sale, but if enough people actually stopped buying Sony products then maybe it might get a reaction. Especially just before Christmas…
I must admit that I have been personally boycotting SONY for another reason apart from the Digital Rights Management (DRM) debacle. My boycott is due to SONY’s care free attitude to downright disdain for their customer. I had written to Sony complaining of the way I was treated by Citibank (Sony branded mastercard) and their attitude was Fork U! But no worries, there are plenty of electronics manufacturers out there that deserve my business. Let’s see my Dell notebook, Pioneer 55″ projection screen tv, Pioneer DVD recorder, Yahama home theatre receiver, the list goes on. The worst thing about Sony is that they price themselves as high-end products and their stuff is at best mid-grade. Btw, my next big purchase will be a Samsung plasma screen TV. Long live the boycott!
It’s not just the the DRM issue that is the problem with Sony. Their contempt for the customers runs much deeper. Take a loot at their EULA’s that go along with the CD that you have PURCHASED AND PAID FOR. They are some of the most ridiculous and draconian terms I have ever seen (with probably much of it illegal under EU law).
Then there is the whole proprietary thing, Betamax (when everyone used VHS), DAT (when everyone was going recordable CD), Minidisk (when everyone was going hard disk), ATRAC (when everyone was going MP3), Memory Stick (when everyone was going Compact Flash / SC card). The list goes on and on. Now their is an incompatible Blue Ray when HD-DVD is backwards compatible with DVD. Even the mains adaptors and audio connectors that come with their products use non-standard connectors to ensure that you can’t buy generic units and have to buy Expensive Sony versions instead. They do it on purpose just to screw as much money out of their customers as possible. I hated Sony long before the DRM debacle happened. It’s no wonder George Michael hated them so much that he would rather not ever write another note than be stuck on that label a moment longer. I loved the “Fony” logo on the headphones one of the models was wearing in his video”. It sums up this arrogant, despicable and contemptuous company.
Remember, it’s not just the DRM issue that is the problem with Sony. It runs much, much deeper if you care to look into it.