Digital BW, The Print

Presumably this will move some users toward HP, where
B&W OEM visual qualities are said to be better on some
papers in some respects...

But I'd have to feel confident about HP's
moisture-resistance before switching, as Epson's color
pigments have been incredibly good and most Epson
models work beautifully on a far wider range of papers
than on HP. 

It'll be hard to organize political pressure along the
lines that have been suggested, since so much of the
blather here and elsewhere about third party inks has
to do with cheapness factors, in some cases related to
dubious gray-market sources (eg via EBay). 

"Quality" of 3rd party inks seems an iffy argument at
best, as clogging/printer failure directly
attributable to 3rd party inks has for several years
seemd the most-posted concern on this and other inkjet
Groups. 

IMO/FWIW/I ain't no lawyer: The only argument that
will work is "restraint of trade." 

Macintosh is in business today *only* because
Microsoft backed off, didn't buy more politicians, saw
the wisdom of allowing some competition. They needed
evidence of competition for protection from Federal
Trade Commission and others. For the same reason,
Epson ought to be happy MIS and Piezo offer them some
token competiton.