[kragen]

You may not have heard of this, but a union of companies is called a "trust", and there's an entire division of the Department of Justice devoted to preventing them from forming, and destroying them when they do arise: http://www.justice.gov/atr/

[DenisM]

Which is precisely why MPAA, RIAA, BSA, and other industry associations simply do not exist, right? :)

[kragen]

Congress has actually enacted specific legislation to exempt the MPAA and RIAA from some aspects of antitrust law. I don't know about the BSA.

To be more specific, though, there are some ways that companies can legally cooperate under current antitrust law — for example, standardizing screw threads and grades of steel. But boycotting the "products" of certain "vendors" is probably not among them.

[jackpine]

weak sauce. who let this guy on yc?