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'Anonymous' Plans Sony Boycott On April 16
Here's an excerpt from PCMag:
"Say you're a hacker trying to cripple a major electronics company for suing its own users: how do you launch a cyberattack without harming the people you're trying to protect? In the case of hactivist group 'Anonymous,' which has spent the week targeting Sony to retaliate against Sony's ongoing lawsuits against PlayStation 3 modifiers, you take it offline.
Anonymous is staging a 24-hour, in-store boycott at Sony stores around the world on Saturday, April 16. So far over 1,000 people have RSVP'd through Facebook."
They've got 1000 people for a worldwide boycott. I agree, this protest will be like a dust mite crawling across Sony's monocle.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
Doesn't sound like much, but that will be enough to quadruple the in-store crowds around here.
I can't walk by the Sony Store in the local mall without comparing it to the Apple store a few steps away and guffawing at how far Sony has fallen from relevance. If it weren't for their gaming division, they'd be no different from Generic South Korean Electronics Co., Ltd.
And if gamers would just stop giving them money the company might actually be forced to take stock of its own behavior.
A boycott is a form of consumer activism involving the act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons.
sit-in == protest. boycott == protest. and yet, boycott != sit-in.
I'm still not going to sign anything associated with "anonymous." That's just asking for trouble. But before anonymous started making headlines, I have been vehemently against Sony and its products and my history shows it. I just hope this boycott catches on. Sony needs to be taken down a notch.
Damn you brainless consumers!! Don't you know that Sony is bad?
And you're going to 'block sales' without trespassing or obstructing traffic how exactly?
'cmon. Has everybody forgotten how to protest. If the protesters want to get away with it there are so many ways this can be done. Wait until other customers start to arrive in the store. Go into the store (together with more friends than there are assistants). Pretend to be a customer. Demand attention then ask long and annoying but plausible questions about something expensive best of all if it's something you really do want to buy somewhere else. Act unsure; keep all the assistants busy. Then give up. Walk to a different part of the store. Repeat. Alternatively stand outside and be loud. Most customers won't come. Alternatively come in the same colour as the shop assistants. If asked give misleading advice, especially to go to the store round the corner.
Anyway you probably don't care too much about being charged with trespassing. That's the whole point of civil disobedience.
You know, I hope you people who do these things don't object when right wing wackos boycott Ford for 'promoting' homosexuality or anything..
Of course I object; to the homophobia. I don't care about the fact of the boycott if it wasn't for such a bad reason.
P.S. The best way to boycott Sony is not buying their stuff. Buy a Wii instead. That's what I do. I won't be turning up in a Sony store tomorrow because I haven't cared about Sony for years.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
the point of them being a corporation is to make money.
NO! Quit repeating that. The point is to create wealth, add value to society. It is not just to "make money". Money is only a proxy, an imperfect measure of value. Why imperfect? Because there are all kinds of destructive actions that make one small group or individual richer, or only seemingly richer, at the expense of everyone else. The simplest way is outright theft. Lying is another popular one. Bribery is yet another ancient practice. Obtaining a monopoly and gouging the public is the holy grail of profit, and far too many corporations strive for that. Recently we've seen another way: Too Big to Fail. Corporations, to their shame, do all that and more, all the time. Worse, they think that's just life. It need not be! We try to maintain some civility, outlaw destructive actions, and police our corporate citizens, but it isn't easy. There will always be some crime, of course. But we must keep the fraud and deceit in check, or the system will collapse. Damn near happened in 2008, but we were able to bail everyone out. We didn't do it for their sakes, but for our own. Next time, we might not be able to, and then what? I'm not impressed with their behavior. We suffer their existence because they do add value. If ever they fail us, make such a mess that the damage they cause exceeds all possible future value, and we know of it, we can sink them. They know that. But we are very forgiving, maybe too forgiving, and they know that too. For instance, I doubt that BP could survive another disaster like the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Perhaps BP should have been liquidated, and their management thrown in jail.
I really don't see what your problem with Geohot is. Even if he's an attention whore, as you allege, so what? Blaming him for Sony's actions is ridiculous. He didn't "make" them do anything. He has every right to do anything he wants with his property, EULAs be damned. And to exercise his right to free speech. All he did was point out that the Emperor Has No Clothes. Their DRM is a joke and a fraud, just like the Emperor's clothes.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"