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Comment by SeanDav | Hacker News Reader

I really try hard not to buy Sony anymore. Not fanatical about it, but why support a company that does this, along with installing rootkits and other behaviour of course.

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After the root kits I had it with Sony to the point of being fanatical (something that I generally am not) I research everything I buy, if it is encumbered by a single Sony (or one of it's subsidiary's) patents in which Sony receives royalties, I will not buy it, I boycott any Sony labeled music and I avoid everything Sony. I have never boycotted anything in my life but Sony is just over the top in abusing the system. They prove that the system is no longer set up for the people. The root kits would of landed any one of us as citizens in jail for a long time for such a wide spread infection of machines. Sony received no criminal charges and got a wrist slap of a settlement. Until they pay for their criminal behavior I will not purchase another product that has any Sony tech in it. Some time principals are more important than a gadget that one can truly live without. I contributed a fair amount to GeoHotz defense and hope that it helps to screw Sony over. If anyone that reads this is ever sued by Sony please email me, I will contribute to your defense fund.

I still haven't forgiven them for turning virtualization off by default in their BIOSs. Although they "undid" this for most of their machines (so I understand), they didn't for mine.

Pricks.

I sympathize. However, it is very hard to completely avoid their products if you love music or movies.

Well if you love music or movies, you can easily avoid PAYING for their products.

Even if you don't support piracy, you can easily avoid paying Sony by just buying used.

You're not paying Sony directly, but you're still helping them with the network effect (for example, promoting their music/movies, or their gaming platform).

Buying used doesn't support anybody else involved in the production. If you're worried about the ethics of piracy, I do not understand how buying used changes things.

The existence of a resale market likely increases the initial purchases of the item.

How? Hypothetically, say the utility you'd get out a specific album is $8. The price is $10, so, naturally you won't buy it. However, you normally tire of music in, say, a year. You realize you can sell it them for $4. So instead you go ahead and buy it ("it really only costs me $6, 'cause I can sell it when I'm done with it").

True, but if you want to take that look, buying used doesn't effectively keep your money out of Sony's hands either. You're just laundering it to keep your own conscience clean. Of course, not paying for it at all doesn't help anyone involved.

If I could cut out labels and buy directly from artists, I would. I imagine we'll see something like that in the future, although the labels would fight against it just as hard as everybody's fighting Netflix.

Not if you want to support the artist. Not every artist offers Flac/H.264 audio/video for purchase on his/her website. The large majority doesn't.

Hard, but not impossible. I wanted to buy new headphones. I was considering the Sony MDR V6 (or the new model that recently came out, won't name the model, don't want to advertise for Sony...). I was ready to pull the trigger, when I thought about the whole whole Geohot fiasco (and other Sony fiascos before that). This led me to research more headphones, and settle on the Sennheiser HD 25-1 II. It costed me a little more, but I couldn't have been happier. Awesome headphones, avoided Sony.

I think the parent was referring to what you might listen to on those headphones.

Woops... You are right. When Daniel said "music and movies", I first thought of Sony's hardware, which is used to consume these medias: Sony flat-screen TVs[1], headphones, Blu-Ray players...

But Sony is indeed a major record label / movie producer. I didn't think about it, since I've recently focused on electronic music, mainly listening to free podcasts [2]...

The only album I bought in the last few years was Girl Talk's "Feed The Animals", because I really liked the "pay what you like" model (similar to what Radiohead did with "In Rainbows"): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_the_Animals#Release

Anyway, sorry for derailing the thread by talking about hardware. I think it was a good example of a buying decision affected by Sony's unacceptable behavior, but I am aware of the limited alternatives when one wants to buy music or movies produced by Sony. I guess I'd buy anyway if there is an artist I like and I don't have any other option.

[1] : which are supposedly high quality, albeit pricy, TVs... well, I'll still look for alternatives, like I did for my headphones

[2] : I need to find some time to start discovering new artists again (maybe using YC's like.fm?), and to study the various online DRM-free music stores (their pricing, formats, and availability in France), to start buying music again, instead of listening to such podcasts. I also want to give back to all the artists that made these podcasts possible.

I "vote" with my money too. I wonder if there is an opportunity for an app that would easily enable a consumer to check whether the company (s)he is willing to buy from is in line with its ethics.

I had an idea for a startup along this line (I call it the ethical investor) and my idea was to create a trader platform that profiled your ethical makeup and made stock recommendations based on your ethical profile.

This would be huge for people that have strong beliefs - especially religious beliefs. I think I read of an index fund that tracks compliant companies for a religious group. I think it could have been for Jewish or Muslim people - it's an awesome idea.

yeah I have been working on it, I think it is a great niche product. I like the name "continuous investor" but I can't think of a play off of that, that would make a reasonable domain name.

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