It Is Everyone’s Duty To Defy Unjust Laws

I sometimes hear people claim that laws exist to be followed. These people are the most dangerous people who exist in a society. Tyranny is never upheld through law; it is upheld through thousands of bureaucrats that follow the letter of the law just because they believe in rules and law.

On the other hand, people who take personal responsibility are not in short supply. Doing so in a conscious way dates back to Socrates, who was the first to claim that there is a moral law that transcends and supersedes the law of the land.

You will notice here that I place taking personal responsibility at the opposite of blindly following laws, rules, or orders. That is quite intentional. Just following orders is never an excuse for not taking personal responsibility. Neither is just following the rules. Neither is just following the law.

Society at large will never take “I was just following rules and regulations” for an excuse in the large matters, when the nuclear disaster, fetal damage or war outbreak has happened. It won’t in the small matters, either — the missed sales order because of failing to bribe the right officials, or the bad grade because somebody was the only one who didn’t cheat on the exam.

A person who considers the orders, rules or laws to be wrong has a duty to defy them. Every single war criminal learned this before they were hanged. On the other hand, many resistance fighters learned the opposite before they were shot.

From this, we learn that it is unwise to follow the rules and laws created by others blindly, but just as commonly, it is equally unwise to flaunt defiance. Most things that we consider reasonable, that are banned by rules we consider silly, can be done with a little sense of discretion and proportion. In the larger scheme of things, it is everybody’s duty to do so. A society where people regard rules as general guidelines is a lot healthier for its neighbors and citizens alike than a society where laws and rules are enforced blindly and swiftly.

At the end of the day, you have only your own moral compass. You must decide whether to follow the law, and in considering this, you need to understand why the law was made in the first place.

Laws are not made because they are righteous. Laws are made because they advance somebody’s political career.

(It should be noted that these are words that don’t come from a rock-throwing masked guy, but from a professional politician in suit and tie.)

Usually, it makes sense to follow most laws, most of the time. But not all laws, all of the time. People who are standing waiting at a hung red stoplight at 2am with no human being nor car in sight are not just stupid, but downright dangerous.

The copyright monopoly is one example of such an unjust law. I can think of few things that are more plain evil than not sharing knowledge with your fellow human being, barring hurting somebody physically. Sharing culture and knowledge doesn’t even cost you anything, it just enriches other humans.

Does this mean I encourage breaking the law? No. Mostly it doesn’t mean that because doing so would be too flauntingly illegal. However, in the spirit of discretion, I encourage everybody to follow their own moral compass and to help their fellow human beings.

It is everybody’s duty to defy unjust laws.

— — —

Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at http://falkvinge.net focuses on information policy.

Follow Rick Falkvinge on Twitter as @Falkvinge and on Facebook as /rickfalkvinge.

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http://www.TechComet.com abhiroopb

Well written piece Rick. However, who decides which laws are just and which are unjust? In hindsight the Nuremburg Laws were clearly unjust, but Germans followed them thinking they were just. Should they be blamed?
- Neil Harper
  
  YOU DECIDE! That’s what he’s saying. Use the analytical part of your brain and decide which laws are just (No murdering, raping, robbing banks etc.) , which laws that are clearly politically motivated (Hadopi, Protect IP act etc.) and which are only really guidelines to make things run smoother (traffic laws etc.)
  
  Some of their Rules can be bent, others can be broken – Morpheus
  - http://www.TechComet.com abhiroopb
    
    Murders and rapists decide that those laws are “unjust”. That is my point. You can’t just say “YOU DECIDE”. Unfortuantely, modern society needs order.
    - http://falkvinge.net/ Rick Falkvinge
      
      Murder and rape has been mandatory by law in some times and places. Some people have decided that the laws were unjust and refused.
    - http://www.mafiaafire.com MAFIAAFire
      
      @Rick,
      Good writeup and very very true.
      
      Let’s not forget in recent history it was perfectly lawful to own another human being… or to use the dirty word, “slave”.
      
      Lawful, yes…. just? Absolutely not.
      
      And quite a few just men fought and defied those laws even though it did not affect them directly (as they were white).
    - Tomcpp
      
      You assume one unique worldwide universal morality. Needless to say, no such beast exist. You see the “just” is what a religion defines. To make it simple, how do you solve this problem ?
      
      Moral question : Is it lawful to own another human being ?
      No
      Yes
      Yes
      Sometimes
      Don’t know, which is more convenient ?
      …
      
      There are many more details. For example : does owning another being give you the right to kill that person ?
      
      No
      Yes
      No
      No
      Don’t know, which is more convenient ?
      …
      
      “You are imposing your own values on others !”, which is, of course, a valid criticism … so how would you counter it ?
    - DarknezzMadnezz
      
      I would honestly be careful who you are calling a masked stone thrower…
      You never know who is watching.
    - Anon
      
      And some decided the laws were just and complied.
    - http://twitter.com/LiveStr3amer Str3amer
      
      And they were called the Waffen-SS.
      Godwin FTW.
    - Anonymous
      
      The unannounced point that is being made here is mainly that there are absolutes and disputed/”gray laws” in politics and laws.
      
      For instance, I believe that murder is an absolute wrong, therefore if you murder someone, you should be punished, and when you are defying an “absolute” law, you are wrong.
      
      Now, a law can change from a “gray” law to an absolute law. This was the case with slavery. It is well accepted in the Western world today that slavery was, is, and always will be wrong among the general population, and therefore it becomes on of the “absolute” laws.
      
      An example of a “gray” law is the copyright laws and filesharing etc., or the PROTECT IP Act coming into legislation. This would be one in which one person could dispute it’s purpose, moral background and purpose, etc. Therefore, PROTECT IP is a “gray” law, that even though it may pass through legislation, it may not be right at all. Previous TorrentFreak posts show the pointless-ness of the DNS Re-router/Blocker/whatever-it-is and how it could be worked around.
    - Guest
      
      There are no ‘Absolute laws’. Slavery – it’s considered wrong today, you think it’s now an Absolute law, but really, this law could easily revert to gray.
      What if we decided, as a society, to force criminals in jail to work for society, without pay (actually, this is happening in the USA today but we just don’t call it slavery). Lots of people would agree with this, they would say “Those criminals cost us money, we must feed them etc… It’s OK to make them work”.
      
      Even murder is still gray – it’s not OK to kill, except if it’s a criminal on Death Row.
      
      Rape? – Cavity searches are fine in some situations.
      
      All laws are gray because it’s very easy to overturn them or to make exceptions to them. They’re always gray.
    - 123
      
      “actually, this is happening in the USA today but we just don’t call it slavery”
      
      I know this isn’t related to filesharing, but two things. First, hard labor is used less than the past. You seemed to imply that it is on the rise.
      
      Secondly, it’s not slavery because it is used as a just punishment for a crime. Slavery is the capture of an individual to force them into work. It relies on treating the individual as property. The punishment does not treat them as property, it acts as justice for something they have done in the past.
      
      I know I’m nitpicking, but really, don’t compare the two.
    - anon=coward
      
      Besides the obvious subjectivism in this post, I just want to know how you feel that copyright law is unjust. How do we have a god-given right to consume authored works of art – Lady Gaga’s new album, for example – without compensating anyone for it? Pirating movies and albums is not an exercise of free speech – being denied those products is not censorship. Censorship is when free expression is denied to groups who would wish to air their political ideology. Enforcing copyright in principle is not censorship. Maybe copyright does extend a little beyond a reasonable limit, but that doesn’t invalidate the concept as a whole. And monied interests lobbying the gov’t? Try EVERY industry in America. Just because there’s a political group lobbying for a law doesn’t say anything definitive about the law. In fact, content’s political lobby is about 1,000 times less powerful than the tech sector’s lobby. So does that mean we should ignore any laws that the tech lobby passes? And what if they support your personal interests? I will be willing to bet that you will support them wholeheartedly.
      
      You are unable to view your own bias. Which is a mark of intellectual weakness.
    - Chimel31
      
      Even if you listen to a Lady Gaga album for free in a non-commercial context, it does not mean that there can be no compensation for it. Maybe just not to the label but to the artist directly, or not paid by the actual listener but by a different mechanism than the current copyright system.
      And I would not worry too much about Lady Gaga, an indie artist would make a more interesting point.
    - Chimel31
      
      Even if you listen to a Lady Gaga album for free in a non-commercial context, it does not mean that there can be no compensation for it. Maybe just not to the label but to the artist directly, or not paid by the actual listener but by a different mechanism than the current copyright system.
      And I would not worry too much about Lady Gaga, an indie artist would make a more interesting point.
    - Chimel31
      
      By the way, someone replied to me earlier this week when I told him that the whole album was on sale for 99 cents on Amazon when he paid £10-15 for it: “yeah, but I wouldn’t have got the CD and a booklet AND a frigging poster, would I?” ^-^
    - Ven
      
      But why are you choosing to invalidate the contract lady Gaga agreed upon? If she makes music, and chooses to pay so much to a label for the perks of being on a label, at what point are you the consumer allowed to step in and say that you shouldn’t have to pay because she is being treated unfairly? If your beef is that she isn’t getting paid what she deserves, realize that she gets paid less (and has her distribution rights trampled) when the consumer chooses to “Stick it to the corporate machine” and pirate.
      
      And in your last sentence you infer that lawmaking doesn’t really need to protect the rich, which lacks forethought.
    - Tiger97a
      
      my problem with the copy write laws are this- when i buy it and i do buy quite a few movies they belong to me not to you anymore and if i want to make a copy for my other houses where i don’t have to buy a second copy that should be my right as i now own that copy but and i agree to this point to not sell them as that would be stealing. now i belong to a club where we get together and swap movies from each other but the movie company’s legal crap considers that unlawful also.
      
      when you pay for leaders in our government to change laws to justify your way of thinking then that is and should be a consider worse any day then copying a movie . what is to stop the next thing that we are forced to not say or think because somebody might claim that they might be loosing a few dollars or something. i am over 50 and never would of thought about p2p a movie or anything but i am drawn to it because i see our rights being took away with these laws that you want to pass just to protect a business model that in todays society that holds back new opportunistic ways and thinking.
      
      now i say we are paying way to much for a DVDs and a Cd as you see this is one of the reasons p2p has took off and more and more its people just like me that are your worst night mare as we are embracing it ever day
      
      its just like you as a paid troll for them and if the truth was known i bet you have copy a song or two in your own time.
    - Ven
      
      “i see our rights being took away with these laws that you want to pass just to protect a business model that in todays society that holds back new opportunistic ways and thinking.”
      
      Can you point out some examples of the progress that are held back by digital copyright? I don’t see how Led Zeppelin music being “public property” is going to help society in any tangible way… It will however help Activision punch out a Guitar Hero: Zeppelin without having Jimmy Page able to refuse and defend his image.
      
      I guess I could see it in the software world… But in film, books, tv, and music? The Copyright Office, the Library system, and other organizations already protect our culture, but protecting culture has nothing to do with it being free… Keeping in mind that fair use already allows for educational distribution without permission.
    - http://twitter.com/ynthrepic David Boulton
      
      The whole concept of copyright is invalid when applied to non-tangible goods. They can be copied indefinitely at virtually no loss to anyone (except maybe the person who makes the copy). The only reason we can actually charge money for intangible goods is because of the artificial scarcity created by the laws we have in place, and it worked for the most part until the internet made it all too easy to spread the love.
      
      Morally it makes no sense to charge money for intangible goods because they can be freely distributed at virtually no reasource cost to everyone on the planet, creating a great deal of happiness and positive well-being for all. Why not?
      
      Sure, there was a creation process that took time, energy and creative talent, and that process is tangible and should be compensated for to the extent that it is reasonable. But, what the industry is trying to convince everyone of, is that without copyright laws in place these people will not be compensated. We all know that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that that is bullsh*t. What isn’t bullsh*t, is that a lot of people making money off of the backs of creative people will lose money. That is what we want, and what the industry loaths and lobbies to prevent.
    - http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
      
      Actually, you need to protect these intangible foods from being used commercially. And for that I do defend copyright. However, the whole discussion is over non-commercial use. And considering the fact that artists actually get bs from labels and other middlemen I think we do need a copyright reform to put them in their deserved place: middleman.
    - http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
      
      You are unable to say anything other than what we’ve heard from MAFIAA. Which is a mark of your intellectual weakness.
      
      Rick has pointed in other articles and other means that he is not against copyright but he is against the abuses and the lack of connection to the current reality. You even used the tech lobby as an example and we’ve been discussing for ages about how the companies sell the gadget but try to bind you through outrageous EULAs.
      
      So, in summary, you fail.
    - cgimusic
      
      What is common between murdering, raping and robbing banks is that they all infringe on peoples right’s to live free and own property. These laws are ones that are almost universally agreed on and required for a civilized society to function. I know it is not always black and white and intellectual property is one of those gray areas in the middle because it is debatable wether it is property at all. Other than these basic common agreements between all rational people I think it is a massive mistake to make a hard and fast law about anything because every situation is going to be different.
    - DarknezzMadnezz
      
      you screwed your entire argument by adding bank robbing…
      the banks have robbed people “legally” for years with no one batting an eye at them about it.
      
      Murder and rape are on a completely different level.
    - Ven
      
      If banks (or the individuals operating them) are thieves, than the Bill of Rights protects their right to a fair trial. And sometimes, they go to court and win or lose depending on what they have done.
      
      But you have to be very careful before you decide that businesses that operate within the law (even if they do so like scum) are in the wrong. At that point you have stopped trusting the laws that govern business.
      
      And there is nothing wrong with questioning laws. However, the solution is to work on changing laws, not robbing banks.
    - Ven
      
      If banks (or the individuals operating them) are thieves, than the Bill of Rights protects their right to a fair trial. And sometimes, they go to court and win or lose depending on what they have done.
      
      But you have to be very careful before you decide that businesses that operate within the law (even if they do so like scum) are in the wrong. At that point you have stopped trusting the laws that govern business.
      
      And there is nothing wrong with questioning laws. However, the solution is to work on changing laws, not robbing banks.
    - http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
      
      When we saw Wall-Street jerks putting the bail money given by the Govt into their pockets I guess it became clear that there’s something wrong with financial companies, which includes banks.
    - Ven
      
      “intellectual property is one of those gray areas in the middle because it is debatable wether it is property at all.”
      
      That is the crux of the situation: if it is property, then obviously we want to protect it under law. If it isn’t property, then nobody really has a claim on it. That is the discussion that needs to happen on a large scale before any “hard and fast law” gets put in place.
    - Ven
      
      “intellectual property is one of those gray areas in the middle because it is debatable wether it is property at all.”
      
      That is the crux of the situation: if it is property, then obviously we want to protect it under law. If it isn’t property, then nobody really has a claim on it. That is the discussion that needs to happen on a large scale before any “hard and fast law” gets put in place.
    - http://twitter.com/ynthrepic David Boulton
      
      There is no discussion because it was lawmakers that drew correlations between ideas and property in the first place. It was an idea bread out of the desire to make money from ideas on the assumption that it creates an incentive to be innovative. An assumption that has been disproven by psychlologists many times over (unless by innovative we mean people trying to get around the law).
      
      Ideas are intangible. Trying to pretend they were tangible was always going to backfire at some point.
    - http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
      
      It’s not property but it must be protected from commercial use, much like patents do for industrial process or goods. Currently copyright goes beyond what it should be doing.
    - Bob
      
      murder is a stupid comparison, laws saying that you cannot harm others are very different from laws saying that you can/cannot encroach on others’ freedom. Unfortunately when someone puts down a law saying “you shall not take someone’s idea”, for instance, someone will find a way to abuse the law and move from commonsense and fairness to upholding the letter of the law. In other words the fewer laws and the looser they are the more “ordered” and well behaved the society is.
    - Anon
      
      “laws saying that you cannot harm others are very different from laws saying that you can/cannot encroach on others’ freedom. ”
      
      Um…both those things sound equally bad to me.
    - Josh C
      
      If you think about it, murder is infringing a person’s right to live ^^
    - Ven
      
      A right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is the statement I believe. The question with PROTECT IP has naught to do with the crime, but rather if the steps the DoJ will take under it allowable under the Bill of Rights.
      
      BoR Article IV: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. ”
      
      And Article V: “… nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”
      
      So in this case, it would hinge upon the DoJ having a probable cause supported by oath or affirmation. This means either the DoJ does some footwork before a take-down, or whoever filed the complaint is doing so under oath and is held legally responsible if shown to be wrong.
    - ball jugler
      
      There’s nothing wrong with murder or raping… just saying …
      I would totally kidnap and throw Marie Antoinette into a L.A ghetto neighborhood to be train banged and then i would do a “microwave” on her (search: Brazilian fabela microwave)
    - http://twitter.com/ynthrepic David Boulton
      
      The moral compass Rick refers to is the one that stems from our collective human interests – i.e. the well-being of ourselves and those we care about.
    - Zork
      
      No, muhrarahrs and rapeestz know what they’re doing is not a-okay.
    - Scary Devil Monastery
      
      The law in saudi arabia states that women shall be caned for driving and that adultery is punishable by death (for the woman at least). Drop a gum wrapper on the streets of Singapore and you will be caned. In some US states it’s still forbidden to hang male and female underwear to dry on the same clothesline.
      
      And in some areas of the world it is still a law that a transgression performed by a male family member can be paid for by submitting a female relative to gang rape.
      
      It’s quite obvious that the word “law” has no relation whatsoever to “right” or “wrong”. The smallest child understands this.
    - Scary Devil Monastery
      
      @Ven
      
      “I don’t see how Led Zeppelin music being “public property” is going to help society in any tangible way… It will however help Activision punch out a Guitar Hero: Zeppelin without having Jimmy Page able to refuse and defend his image.”
      
      That has nothing to do with “copyright” but with “trademark”. You can create a game today where you add your own version or remix of a zeppelin song sufficiently different to pass as a cover, call it “guitar hero”, avoid mentioning Zeppelin altogether and so on…and unless you performed better than the original that game won’t sell as well as the one with Zeppelin as a brand.
      
      Which has nothing to do with the fact that anyone with a personal computer today can create a virtual copy of any information, whatever that information may be.
      
      Trademark is enforceable and to most people, makes sense as a reasoned approach. Copyright does neither and requires completely disproportionate responses in order to even create the illusion of enforceability, to great harm for civic rights and normal jurisprudence. There’s a very big difference which you should learn.
    - Scary Devil Monastery
      
      @Ven
      
      “I don’t see how Led Zeppelin music being “public property” is going to help society in any tangible way… It will however help Activision punch out a Guitar Hero: Zeppelin without having Jimmy Page able to refuse and defend his image.”
      
      That has nothing to do with “copyright” but with “trademark”. You can create a game today where you add your own version or remix of a zeppelin song sufficiently different to pass as a cover, call it “guitar hero”, avoid mentioning Zeppelin altogether and so on…and unless you performed better than the original that game won’t sell as well as the one with Zeppelin as a brand.
      
      Which has nothing to do with the fact that anyone with a personal computer today can create a virtual copy of any information, whatever that information may be.
      
      Trademark is enforceable and to most people, makes sense as a reasoned approach. Copyright does neither and requires completely disproportionate responses in order to even create the illusion of enforceability, to great harm for civic rights and normal jurisprudence. There’s a very big difference which you should learn.
  - http://www.TechComet.com abhiroopb
    
    Murders and rapists decide that those laws are “unjust”. That is my point. You can’t just say “YOU DECIDE”. Unfortuantely, modern society needs order.
  - Anonymous
    
    what he really means is SMOKE WEED!
  - http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
    
    Epic comment Neil. Nice description.
  - DRuNKeN MaSTeR
    
    Unfortunately most people don’t have the mental capacity to decide for themselves. Just look at the American (read: USA) society. People need laws. They always did. Sometimes the laws are wrong, but in that case they need to be changed rather than enforced. If they are enforced nonetheless, there will be a revolution, uprising, or what ever. But they’ll be challenged.
  - DRuNKeN MaSTeR
    
    Unfortunately most people don’t have the mental capacity to decide for themselves. Just look at the American (read: USA) society. People need laws. They always did. Sometimes the laws are wrong, but in that case they need to be changed rather than enforced. If they are enforced nonetheless, there will be a revolution, uprising, or what ever. But they’ll be challenged.
- Neil Harper
  
  Also… Not all Germans capitulated with their government during WWII, there was a German resistance movement, many people hid Jews from the Nazis Those who sold out their Jewish neighbors to the SS should be blamed of course. The majority of people did nothing but try to survive the war.
- Peddjeq
  
  I don’t understand. We, each and every one of us, decides if laws are just or unjust. We each make our own decision and consult our moral framework.
  - Ven
    
    The question is at what point do you decide that your personal idea of unjust law requires public outcry. I’ve seen my share of speed limits that are downright stupid, but I don’t speed. Some people do. They speed in places where the speed limit makes perfect sense to a rational person. They end up hurt or hurting others.
    
    So do we throw out all laws and have everybody judge right and wrong for themselves, or do we offer some form of construct by which all other laws are judged (i.e. Bill of Rights)?
    - Scary Devil Monastery
      
      Generally speaking morality tends to stem from your personal surroundings. If you are a gang member then burglary may to you be perfectly OK. If you were brought up as an ultraorthodox Yemenite muslim you may believe that participation in a gang rape is suitable compensation for a transgression.
      
      In any “well-adjusted” society there’s a quite natural taboo on theft, drug intake, DOI, or even just “driving like a madman”.
      Whereas getting one drink before driving or driving 5 mph above the limit may be shrugged off with a frown.
      
      When it comes to Intellectual Property, most of those laws don’t make any sense other than as a high-blown ideal with no grounding. Much like the high ideal of “fairness for all” can heartily be agreed with, but very few can really go along with what the inescapable practical follow-through – Communism – actually means. At the end of the day most people settle for “fair enough” which isn’t the same thing.
      
      Specifically regarding IP the only part people can grasp at a grassroots level tends to be the idea of the “trademark” which is where the recognition for the work falls.
      The idea that creating a simple copy of anything in your possession should be an offense is simply too alien to grasp.
    - Ven
      
      @Scary Devil Monastery
      
      Copyrights as defined by the courts have to do with duplication of an item for the purpose of distribution. The Supreme Court decided that copies for personal use are perfectly reasonable and are considered legal (regardless of what harassing RIAA/MPAA PR people say).
      
      And it isn’t alien to be denied distribution rights, even if it’s on something easily copied. There are all kinds of items that legally cannot be shared with others: prescriptions, firearms, alcohol and cigarettes with minors, vehicles not properly insured, and others. People are either ignorant of the laws or disobedient of the laws, neither of which is a good argument against those laws.
      
      “When it comes to Intellectual Property, most of those laws don’t make any sense other than as a high-blown ideal with no grounding.”
      
      Just to clarify, I’m talking about music and movies, not books and software. The day copyright law changes unfavorably for books, they will simply move back to physical distribution only, at which point scanning them and posting them online will still be illegal. Software gets tricky, because I feel there are a great deal of ideas that (based on past judgements) would be declared utilities unfit to be rewarded a copyright. Unfortunately, they need a process to deal with each one on a one-by-one basis as I don’t feel all software falls under the definition of utility.
    - Scary Devil Monastery
      
      “And it isn’t alien to be denied distribution rights, even if it’s on something easily copied. There are all kinds of items that legally cannot be shared with others: prescriptions, firearms, alcohol and cigarettes with minors, vehicles not properly insured, and others.”
      
      But that’s an entirely different debate. In most countries, possession of a firearm requires a license. But in the US is you manufacture a perfect replica of a winchester you are certainly allowed to give it away to just about anyone else. You can even sell it. What you can’t do is sell it as a “Colt winchester” as that would violate the Trademark. The same applies to cars, alcohol and tobacco.
      In all of your examples the problem isn’t replication but the fact that the actual possession of the item in question is under restriction. And if the possession of an item poses a health/safety risk then the manufacturer is open to legal repercussions if the item does not meet some form of minimum standard.
      
      Where the item in question doesn’t pose a health risk (say, a box of Oreos), then you can certainly bake as many of those as you like and distribute them to as many as you like and no one is going to see the sense in a lawyer showing up and screaming “You’re too generous”.
      
      Whereas everything which copyright is meant to handle in immaterial form is information only. Once you try to restrict who is allowed to communicate which type of data and to whom you have gone headfirst into the realm of information control. Which is where my comparison to the Sovjet union, China, and the old DDR comes into play.
      The only way to enforce copyright on information is to implement the same system used in those nations – blanket mass surveillance and severe restrictions on how people are allowed to communicate. In essence, to keep copyright enforceable, free speech dies.
      
      The prohibition era ended simply because no matter how great the savings in public health were, the cost to society in trying to enforce those laws became far too great.
      
      Today copyright is comparable to what the catholic church and medieval europe went through by the invention of the printing press. The personal computer and the internet takes the place of that press today.
      
      As a society, we can’t afford the concept of “Intellectual Property”. We’ve known this for centuries (millenia, if you look at China’s history).
      
      What we can do to enforce a creator’s rights is to build a sturdy and enforceable legal construction around is the concept of the Trademark (and indeed we have done so), but that is a very different animal indeed from the idea of preventing person A to communicate information type B to person C which is what Copyright in essence is all about.
- Grindleader
  
  There is nothing inherently wrong with rules. The question is, are the rules just? Who writes them?
  
  Tyrannies use rules to impose their will. Rules should be just and implemented for the greater good. Most people would agree that murder is wrong.
  
  If you look closely at rules, they generally support some kind of moral ideal or concept. When rules instead, are used to subjugate or curtail the basic freedoms of people, they become a form of bondage and tend to become more and more unjust.
  
  Wise and just rulers are few and far between as we can see today.
W0

Stupid question, but is it supposed to say “fetal damage” or “fatal damage”?
- Grumpygit
  
  fetal/foetal damage
cgimusic

So many laws are passed for completely the wrong reason and the people forget why the law was passed and say “well there must have been a good reason for it”. One of the reasons marijuana was criminalized was to prevent the immigration of Mexicans to America.
- Gmack1264
  
  “One of the reasons marijuana was criminalized was to prevent the immigration of Mexicans to America.”
  
  I have to disagree with this. Speaking…err, typing… as one living in the Southern US, I can safely say that outlawing cannabis did nothing to stem the tide of Mexican immigrants. Nevermind that average strength pot comes from across the southern border smuggled in freight coming from Mexico; most of the strongest pot (referred to on the street as Hydro, ask any pothead) comes from of all places Canada. Thank NAFTA for that.
  
  Outlawing pot was a politically/religiously motivated law. Some right-wing Christian extremists lobbied the gov to stamp it out – much like they did for alcohol during the Prohibition period. With obviously much the same result.
  
  The gov might as well legalize pot. That way they can tax it, and pocket the cash that would otherwise be going to violent drug gangs.
  - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
    
    Actually, I would go so far as to say that they should legalize the drug trade PERIOD. We have tried for YEARS this drug war nonsense, and the only thing we have gotten is escalating violence.
    
    I have no problem with people who don’t want to use drugs…. but they damned well should keep their nose out of my business, unless I am causing a direct and imminent/immediate danger to someone else, and let me do what I want to do with my own life.
mwe

i do agree that some laws were put to use for political reasons or someone personal gain and some aren’t so(for example its wrong to kill and steal) we should know the difference between those two and act upon that knowledge
Notwithstanding

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Notwithstanding

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
LyleD

Thank you Rick.. You’re 100% correct, it is EVERYBODY’s duty to defy unjust laws.

Power corrupts. The evidence is all around us from US Senators taking corporate bribes and insider trading to governments all round the world bending over backwards to abuse everyone using copyrights..

This world could be so much better *sigh*
Woo

trouble is, if a person defies the law, who listens? certainly no one with power, political or other wise. who is going to help those that defy the ridiculous laws the US, France etc are imposing? who is going to stop those people from having their lives and probably their families lives ruined? most could not pay for any sort of legal representation, which is what the corrupt ‘people and corporations of power’ rely on, so who is going to help them? although i agree with your views, Rick, and even though the people should be in the majority, no one is interested in anything except lining their own pockets. representing ‘the people’ is so far down the list, it is unbelievable. we are being made to pay for others ‘indiscretions’ and ‘failure to adapt’, but those in power dont give a flying fuck!
- Anonymous
  
  The people will vote out their corrupt government and keep doing what they think is just. People will never stop fighting something they think is unjust. Sometimes there are more important things that need to be done first, so it looks like nothing is being done about it.
- Anonymous
  
  The people will vote out their corrupt government and keep doing what they think is just. People will never stop fighting something they think is unjust. Sometimes there are more important things that need to be done first, so it looks like nothing is being done about it.
- Ven
  
  Another interesting problem. It is one thing for millions of people to say “Go ahead and try to arrest us all.” Unfortunately, the courts and copyright holders will be more than happy to continue to take money from all those people.
Alex

I agree with the sentiment of this post. However, I fail to see how somebody selling copies of their software/album/book is excercising a morally unjust power, or why a third party should think that offering that software/album/book for free is their duty. Can someone explain that to me?
- Gae
  
  The point is that copyright laws are unjust, and if we all just went along with them they would always remain so.
  But already the mass defiance that is currently hapening is in some cases causing the laws to be looked at again, although of course in some cases these laws are bieng made even more unjust.
  - Alex
    
    I understand and agree with the idea of defying unjust laws. What I don’t understand (but am open to enlightenment on) is why it is unjust for an author to reserve the right to sell their works, and even to exclude others from selling or giving their works away for free.
    You’re saying “copyright laws are unjust”, but giving no reasoning behind that statement.
    - Scary Devil Monastery
      
      “What I don’t understand (but am open to enlightenment on) is why it is unjust for an author to reserve the right to sell their works, and even to exclude others from selling or giving their works away for free.”
      
      He can reserve it as much as he likes but the sad truth about information is that once you’ve published the information you’ve assembled, that information is no longer within the control of anyone.
      
      You need to differentiate between copying and selling. If i read a book and can quote it verbatim, am i a criminal if i read the book out loud to all and sundry? The problem i see now is suddenly that the creator of a book now intends to tell me what i can or cannot do with the contents of my own brain.
      You can extend this to “my personal hard drive” or “my personal smartphone/iPad” if you like but what it boils down to is that it is far more unjust for the creator of a work to suddenly be able to dictate terms on what people can and cannot do with their own personal posessions. That’s where copyright breaks down at a very basic level. The only way to own information is to not publicize it. End of story.
      
      Paternity rights or trademark is another matter. If an author with dedicated readers publishes a good book then any one who actually desires to read the works of author will buy the book from him if given the choice between that and the slightly cheaper knockoff.. Especially if it’s also signed.
    - Scary Devil Monastery
      
      “What I don’t understand (but am open to enlightenment on) is why it is unjust for an author to reserve the right to sell their works, and even to exclude others from selling or giving their works away for free.”
      
      He can reserve it as much as he likes but the sad truth about information is that once you’ve published the information you’ve assembled, that information is no longer within the control of anyone.
      
      You need to differentiate between copying and selling. If i read a book and can quote it verbatim, am i a criminal if i read the book out loud to all and sundry? The problem i see now is suddenly that the creator of a book now intends to tell me what i can or cannot do with the contents of my own brain.
      You can extend this to “my personal hard drive” or “my personal smartphone/iPad” if you like but what it boils down to is that it is far more unjust for the creator of a work to suddenly be able to dictate terms on what people can and cannot do with their own personal posessions. That’s where copyright breaks down at a very basic level. The only way to own information is to not publicize it. End of story.
      
      Paternity rights or trademark is another matter. If an author with dedicated readers publishes a good book then any one who actually desires to read the works of author will buy the book from him if given the choice between that and the slightly cheaper knockoff.. Especially if it’s also signed.
- http://twitter.com/LiveStr3amer Str3amer
  
  He does not say that selling a book is exercising a moral unjust power. You can sell your book without having copyright on it. Look at Shakespeare for example Most of us here believe that a better world comes from sharing all information, so that anyone can enrich themselves, Is it just to deny someone access to reading Shakespeare? Listen to Mozart? Because they don’t have the money? Because they live in a dictatorship? Because they live in Africa?
  
  Ok then how is Shakespeare different to any of the recent cinematographic works of art? Depicting tales of human culture and tragedy. And if they really claim to have an original idea that is not based on anything, it would maybe be a different thing. But everything is based on something. That is what makes IP law unjust to me. And i would like to add this link: http://mises.org/daily/5025/The-Fight-against-Intellectual-Property
  
  This disqus thing for posting is really bad by the way. I was not able to make this post on my android 2.3.3. Nothing happened after clicking “post as …” I did not get the popup to enter my email ect. And it’s impossible to read when there are many posts, it just can’t load it all. What is wrong with plain text?
  - Alex
    
    You’re giving bad examples because they are both old enough to be out of copyright term, but I think I get what you mean. It sounds like you’re making 2 arguments:
    
    Your first is that people who can’t afford items released under traditional copyright should still be able to have those things. eg. there should be no need to use Ubuntu and instead, people should be allowed to use a cracked copy of Windows – and it’s our duty to share cracked copies of Windows.
    
    Your second is that nothing is truly original, so there should be no IP law in the first place. Do you not think that this would lead to a decline in progress of music/literature/software when the companies that survive under traditional copyright are no longer able to?
    
    btw, I believe there are lots of problems with IP law – I am far from a copyright maximalist – but I have not yet heard a convincing argument for the real benefits of abolishing copyright.
  - Friend of the People
    
    Mozart and Shakespeare and anything else from that time period hasn’t been under copyright for a very long time. Poor people will always have something that they can read or listen to. It may not be the most modern stuff, but don’t claim that copyright leaves them with nothing.
    
    “And if they really claim to have an original idea that is not based on anything, it would maybe be a different thing.”
    
    You’re using a logical fallacy here. You’re placing an impossible standard, and then justifying yourself when nothing meets it. Nothing can be original. We have over 4,000 years of written culture. Coming up with something entirely new is impossible at this point. That doesn’t invalidate an artist’s work. Art can be as simple as finding a new angle on a story already told, or adapting tropes to fit in a previously unused setting. It is still the creation of the artist.
    
    And yeah, phones really suck for this kind of stuff. I just gave up on trying to post from my phone. Just wait until I have my laptop.
  - Ven
    
    The idea that nobody has an entirely original idea is one thing, but it does not logically follow that ideas are never even partially original. I can’t get a copyright on Romeo and Juliet, but I can on a story about tragic love. The courts decided long ago that it was the protection of those original parts that was needed.
    
    Oh, and Shakespeare and Mozart didn’t write stories and music because they wanted to enrich culture: they did it to make money.
    - Scary Devil Monastery
      
      Neither Shakespeare nor Mozart were under the protection of copyright law. And they did fairly well. And today there’s any number of authors and artists who thrive by publishing their works for free. Copyright only ever benefits the middle man – who has suddenly become as redundant as a medieval blacksmith today.
      
      Not to mention that copyright simply isn’t enforceable.
    - Scary Devil Monastery
      
      Neither Shakespeare nor Mozart were under the protection of copyright law. And they did fairly well. And today there’s any number of authors and artists who thrive by publishing their works for free. Copyright only ever benefits the middle man – who has suddenly become as redundant as a medieval blacksmith today.
      
      Not to mention that copyright simply isn’t enforceable.
    - Scary Devil Monastery
      
      Neither Shakespeare nor Mozart were under the protection of copyright law. And they did fairly well. And today there’s any number of authors and artists who thrive by publishing their works for free. Copyright only ever benefits the middle man – who has suddenly become as redundant as a medieval blacksmith today.
      
      Not to mention that copyright simply isn’t enforceable.
http://www.facebook.com/warface.aps WarFace Aps

Nice rant, but what you are asking people to do it to get up and do something about it. What I say to that is… you first!
- http://twitter.com/ezee ezee
  
  He has.
  
  Google “founder of the pirate party”.
  - http://www.facebook.com/warface.aps WarFace Aps
    
    Fixed
    Google “founder and gave up on the pirate party”
    - Scary Devil Monastery
      
      Erm…Rick Falkvinge today still has a position in the Pirate Party, but his main agenda is as a pirate evangelist. Meaning that today he actually goes all across europe speaking at seminars and conferences, cultivating the movement, and generally speaking helps consolidate the policy.
      
      In other words he puts in a solid days work each day toward the political issues. And has, since 2006.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PXX4S66KOUIGIKTTIMV3CBGO7Y Colin
  
  Following your argument, countless thousands of Egyptians would not have demonstrated in Tahrir Square last January, and Mubarrak would not now be facing a $50 million fine for cutting off Egyptians’ access to the internet.
  - http://www.facebook.com/warface.aps WarFace Aps
    
    No, I said get up and do something about it … and they did, and they won!
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FCNK7C55CBUYFVSC5LNWKB322E Buglord

humanity is both a synonym and the essence of corruption, they can say killing is bad, then go ahead and murder millions of what is needed.. they say they do something to help everyone, when they in fact are destroying a balance in/and an environment..

don’t let humans control, it will only bring pain and destruction, they will mostly break the rules that should be followed, for the sake of destroying the source of these rules.
Pingback: It Is Everyone’s Duty To Defy Unjust Laws | Torrentfreak.com
Anon

Copying is not stealing but that old saying “There’s no honor amongst thieves” applies here. The point is this: Industry is putting its money and its courage publicly where its mouth is and piracy is not. When Jammie Thomas went to trial she called for financial help from the community for her defense. One dollar or one pound or a few kroner from every filesharer with principle could have buried her in cash, hundreds of millions of dollars making an important political statement. Instead the community turned and ran and hid in VPN’s so they could keep on taking files, leaving her exposed and left to sell her thongs. Nice. Do you think government doesn’t notice?

How about Joel Tenenbaum? It’s the same with every other case. Piracy demonstrates daily it’s only about nicking free stuff and nothing else because you make no global statement and there’s been 12 years to organize and fight. You don’t have the courage, you don’t have the conviction, you don’t have near the numbers. So now a decade in and the government sees who you really are and they are starting to fight back. Well done.

Political change is about courage, not free stuff, and democracy is a form of mob rule. When you get the numbers the laws will inevitably change.

So until then exercise your “right” to pick and choose the laws you like while society exercises its right to screw you good and hard. Until your so called “leaders” actually start leading and you actually start supporting their cause, you’ll get punished instead of respected. And the responsibility for those punishments will lie directly with those who walked you right into it.
- Devanite
  
  “There’s no honor amongst thieves” tell me did I buy all of my DVD’s on my shelf or did I steal them, nope, I bought em!
  
  “Industry is putting its money and its courage publicly where its mouth is and piracy is not”
  
  - Mmhmm, you think an ideology based on something other then money somehow demeans the meaning of it because its not producing large wads of cash every 5 minutes?
  
  “One dollar or one pound or a few kroner from every filesharer with principle could have buried her in cash, hundreds of millions of dollars making an important political statement. Instead the community turned and ran and hid in VPN’s so they could keep on taking files, leaving her exposed and left to sell her thongs. Nice. Do you think government doesn’t notice?”
  
  - Yes but one dollar where, on what service, to whom, and yes the US government noticed, they just DIDN’T CARE!
  
  “Piracy demonstrates daily it’s only about nicking free stuff and nothing else because you make no global statement and there’s been 12 years to organize and fight”
  
  humm… its not really about getting free stuff its more or less when a movie starts to equal the cost of filling a tank with gasoline while the movie studios whom each of their management and actors/actresses have million dollar homes try to tell us how hard it is for them to survive? as for the whole not getting organized thing, took the generation that this benefitted most a while, but eventually they grew up, and now… http://www.pp-international.net/
  
  “You don’t have the courage, you don’t have the conviction, you don’t have near the numbers.”
  
  - Oh we have people with courage and conviction, what we do not have is the police on our side, so the second we pop our heads out from behind a VPN trench it gets gnawed off by money hungry media corps, as for the numbers, well… you are definetely wrong there, but this isnt about numbers, after all the last time a government listened to numbers was back when votes actually mattered, now if you don’t vote, who cares, your local politician is still being funded millions by.. MONEY HEAVY CORPORATIONS, and thats what its ALL about!
  
  “Political change is about courage, not free stuff, and democracy is a form of mob rule. When you get the numbers the laws will inevitably change.”
  
  - Had the numbers for a long time, once again, its about money and how much you can throw at a government to get laws passed!
  
  In closing, I do think that you posted this more as a call to arms speech to rile people up (I would hope) but I will always feel compelled to stick up for piracy on the digital seas!
  - Anon
    
    “Had the numbers for a long time, once again, its about money.”
    
    Rubbish. More empty headed pirate crap.
    If you actively want to tell us every election is prefixed and there is a G8 global conspiracy to put the people down through seamless election fixing, you have a lot of evidence to present and an enormous belief to prove. Governments are legitimately voted out every election. You’re just bullshit now. I say you can’t do it.
    
    The true believers are the Pirate Parties, the FreeCulturalists and Rick’s followers, the people actively engaged in this issue. The ones who care. The facts are inconvenient. You don’t have 1% of the numbers you need to vote for genuine change and you never did and you know it.
    
    The Pirate Party and all that they stand for is a pimple on the G8′s ass.
    - Devanite
      
      Umm, I never said there was election fixing, I simply said that there are very few alternatives due to the fact that money is what drives political parties, and in a country like the united states the only two parties there dont really have to worry about whether or not you vote for them because there really isnt a whole lot your vote will count for, even if you dont vote for either party in your country you will still get one of them in charge simply due to your first past the post electorate system, nice try on twisting my words though… not really!
      
      “You don’t have 1% of the numbers you need to vote for genuine change and you never did and you know it.”
      
      You are somewhat right there if a little exaggerative in your estimate, in a first past the post system you need a certain amoutn of people in a (in the case of the US) State to effectively vote for change and you guys just aren’t there yet, mostly due to the fact that the only two options are garbage when it comes to matters that truly effect people in a positive way, hopefully true and accurate representation will eventually win out and people will once again have a voice in an otherwise corporate drown parliament/senate
I am a sausage not a hotdog

This is so well written.Thank you for taking the time to write something to the point.Especially the part on the man in the suit and tie to advance into the next political position.
I am a sausage not a hotdog

This is so well written.Thank you for taking the time to write something to the point.Especially the part on the man in the suit and tie to advance into the next political position.
Zenbote

You should study some books about philosophy of law.
The question if a law is so unjust that its not a law and anyone should not followed it was raised very early and has been especially after WWII and the question of the Germans following orders and laws that were obviously unjust and immoral.

A german law professor and philosopher said this:

“The conflict between justice and the reliability of the law should be solved in favour of the positive law, law enacted by proper authority and power, even in cases where it is injust in terms of content and purpose, except for cases where the discrepancy between the positive law and justice reaches a level so unbearable that the statute has to make way for justice because it has to be considered “erroneous law”. It is impossible to draw a sharper line of demarcation between cases of legal injustice and statutes that are applicable despite their erroneous content; however, another line of demarcation can be drawn with rigidity: Where justice is not even strived for, where equality, which is the core of justice, is renounced in the process of legislation, there a statute is not just ‘erroneous law’, in fact is not of legal nature at all. That is because law, also positive law, cannot be defined otherwise as a rule, that is precisely intended to serve justice.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radbruch_formula

You example is just demagogy because you set an example but dont define the term unjust law. Maybe I think taxes are unjust… can I just ignore them no obviously not at least not without beeing punished in the near future.

Copyright tries to be a just law, as everybody who is copyright owner has the same legal protection. If you question if this is to be right, thats a fair and legal political view. But telling that its an unjust law compared to what are called morally unjust laws made by Germans to discriminate and exterminate Jews, Poles, Political opponents and many others…. is just stupid and very superficial.

DO some research before just posting your opinion in the world thinking your the first that came up with this great idea. Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one.
But only great ideas and movements can persuade someone of the argument you make.
- Anonymous
  
  And some “opinions” take more damage than others. No butt-sex joke intended, I promise. (sarcasm much?)
- Anonymous
  
  And some “opinions” take more damage than others. No butt-sex joke intended, I promise. (sarcasm much?)
- Scary Devil Monastery
  
  “Copyright tries to be a just law, as everybody who is copyright owner has the same legal protection. If you question if this is to be right, thats a fair and legal political view. But telling that its an unjust law compared to what are called morally unjust laws made by Germans to discriminate and exterminate Jews, Poles, Political opponents and many others…. is just stupid and very superficial.”
  
  I disagree. Copyright tries to tell me what person A is allowed to communicate to person B. In that sense copyright is fully comparable to the information control practised by the third reich and the soviet union. And as odious.
Anon

@falkvinge

Rick has more tweets than he has actual followers. :-)
I’m just sayin’.
Anon

@falkvinge

Rick has more tweets than he has actual followers. :-)
I’m just sayin’.
http://twitter.com/electrotech555 Austin L

Tyrant Bastards are the riaa, mpaa, and whatever govt. administration wants to get in my way of “free” and “open” medias! I don’t understand why control and power is a man’s thirst where God can quench any of these addictions more so than power or control. This just goes to prove that the devil is out there.WE DO NEED TO FIGHT!!!!!!! Half of these bullshit laws are made for control! Rights and freedoms being taken away are because of these small laws that some do not know of or follow that kills our rights. Freedom of speech (in my opinion) is easily slipping by us by these goons passing there “IP ACTS” and other control minded cyber effecting laws. Keep the sights up by supporting them and use much bandwidth to show them that we are not giving up.
- DarknezzMadnezz
  
  You lost my interest the moment you brought an imaginary thing into the statement.
  “God” has nothing to do with this.
metal jack layton

hear that jack layton..er i mean jack murdock, your wrong and so are your stupid copyright laws.
IDIOCRACY

I see a lot of comments here that the statement made by Rick, is not correct. For several reasons that are actually true. Statements are made like “you first.”
I guess what Rick forgot to mention but is very clear, you can defy a law in a legal way, you have no need for expensive lawyers or need to go to trail. As an example the comment of Woo.
What should have been said is that you can defy these laws by voting your representatives that want to change that law like in my country the Pirate Party.

So I would call everyone to get from his leeching ass and at least go VOTE instead of complaining about evreything that is wrong. And if you favour privacy and want to change copywrong law… I have a suggestion what to vote… but you all already know…. hehe.
IDIOCRACY

I see a lot of comments here that the statement made by Rick, is not correct. For several reasons that are actually true. Statements are made like “you first.”
I guess what Rick forgot to mention but is very clear, you can defy a law in a legal way, you have no need for expensive lawyers or need to go to trail. As an example the comment of Woo.
What should have been said is that you can defy these laws by voting your representatives that want to change that law like in my country the Pirate Party.

So I would call everyone to get from his leeching ass and at least go VOTE instead of complaining about evreything that is wrong. And if you favour privacy and want to change copywrong law… I have a suggestion what to vote… but you all already know…. hehe.
- DarknezzFallz
  
  the system of “Voting” is fixed… the one with the most money is the one to win.
  
  Not to mention that just because the person you vote for now states they will do something does not exactly mean that they will follow through due to political pressure…
  - IDIOCRACY
    
    I would follow through, so vote me hehe :P
    And the system of voting is fixed is maybe true for USA, but not for long in europe (yet).
    And if we can change law in europe (or at least start in our own little country) than we can legally begin to show middle finger to US(-MAFFIA)A.
Jack

People who are standing waiting at a hung red stoplight at 2am with no human being nor car in sight are not just stupid, but downright dangerous— Care to explain how this is dangerous?

I can think of few things that are more plain evil than not sharing knowledge with your fellow human being, barring hurting somebody physically. Sharing culture and knowledge doesn’t even cost you anything, it just enriches other humans.— Say I discover how to make a new form of energy, ten times as efficient as nuclear power. Is it wrong that I don’t give the blueprints to everyone, and that I shouldn’t use this knowledge to better myself, and only myself and a select few whom I decide to do business with?

And what if I make myself a song and give it to no one, created solely that I may listen to it? Is this evil, not sharing that which I created for free?
- IDIOCRACY
  
  People who are standing waiting at a hung red stoplight at 2am with no human being nor car in sight are not just stupid, but downright dangerous— Care to explain how this is dangerous?
  
  Ok here we go:
  
  those are the kind of people that are so law obediant that said in 1940 to 45 befehl is befehl.
  - Anonymous
    
    …I don’t get it. It can’t be dangerous, because there’s no way it can hurt anyone since, according to the statement itself, there’s no one else around. Personally, I’d stop on the off-chance that I’d missed seeing an oncoming car or pedestrian.
    Also, what the heck is a “befehl”? And how can befehl=befehl not be true? Mathematically speaking, x must always equal x.
    
    …Whatever. Let’s just agree that current copyright laws are stupid, were written to the detriment of the people rather than to their benefit, and that it makes perfect sense to ignore them.
    - Sploosh
      
      Your really not getting it. A person who waits for a red light to change even though there might not be a soul for miles is one who blindly follows laws just because they are laws. They’re dangerous because they don’t think for themselves, others think for them
    - Ven
      
      @Sploosh
      
      I disagree. A person who waits for a red light even though there might not be a soul for miles might be a person who blindly follows laws. Or, they might be a person who is willing to wait 30 seconds for the light to turn green because they recognize the importance of following well-meaning laws that only inconvenience them slightly.
      
      I would wait at that red light. And I would shiver at the thought of sharing this world with people who would rather break inconveniencing laws than wait 30 seconds. Because those kinds of people might also be inconvenienced to drive the speed limit, or drive sober.
      
      My point is that there are a great deal of stupid people in this world, and trying to empower them to break the laws they think are unjust is a slippery slope.
- IDIOCRACY
  
  And for the energy thing, you will not even get the chance to make money of that, whithin a few hours you tell someone you made this invention, you are shot in the head from behind.
- Devanite
  
  “Say I discover how to make a new form of energy, ten times as efficient as nuclear power. Is it wrong that I don’t give the blueprints to everyone, and that I shouldn’t use this knowledge to better myself, and only myself and a select few whom I decide to do business with?”
  
  No but what is wrong is trying to force people to use energy at certain times of the day and force people to change their lifestyle merely around your beliefs
- Scary Devil Monastery
  
  “People who are standing waiting at a hung red stoplight at 2am with no human being nor car in sight are not just stupid, but downright dangerous”
  
  The same way my own traffic teacher explained it to me.
  
  “If you are sitting at a hung light when the street is empty, back the car a few meters to see if the magnetometer embedded in the road will notice you. If it doesn’t, get across carefully but swiftly. Because although you may be a law-abiding citizen, anyone who isn’t and who comes barrelling across from behind at 60 mph will cause far more damage if you are in a sitting car in the middle of the road with no speed with which to avoid him.”
  
  Although i paraphrase, that’s the gist of it.
Moxie

Damn straight…damn effing straight.
dlj

You don’t defy a law so that others notice (although there is always those whom notice). That is irrelevant. It isn’t an act that is done so that you can find acceptance by society, or so that you can become famous. You defy a law because YOU find it unjust, even if nobody else cares, even if nobody notices.
itanimulli

fight the New World Order
Anonymous

Society at large will never take “I was just following rules and regulations” for an excuse in the large matters”

That is not always true. Take for example Second Lieutenant William Calley and the My Lai Massacre. He was eventually the only person convicted of killing some of the 347 to 504 unarmed men, women and children murdered here. He was given life in prison but only 2 days into his sentence he was released by President Nixon, pending an appeal, because the public believed his claim that he was “just following orders”. He eventually received 4 and a half months prison time.

Most people say this was a complete opposite of the German and Japanese War Crime hearings and convictions. We can be assured that had the Vietnamese, or some neutral country, handled this War Crimes case that over 20 US soldiers could well have been convicted and executed.
- Anonymous
  
  Well, war crime is a bit more complicated…
Valynor

‘I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law.’ (Kant)

This is actually all the rules you need, if everybody were wise/intelligent enough to see it.
- Anon
  
  Lovely thought. Now welcome to the real world. People will act poorly, and people will justify their actions in any way. People need rules. They won’t behave without some form of punishment awaiting if they don’t.
  - Valynor
    
    Just like the death sentence in the USA (and elsewhere) is stopping all the new murderers from committing their crimes?
    Punishment has very little effect – people just think THEY will not be caught.
No

Everyone in the USA needs to round up those black people and get them to vote for the Pirate Party.
- Moe Bigsly
  
  Not possible. Sadly, most of them are too indoctrinated by the Democrats.
Common Man

Brought to mind a Chinese proverb:

Laws are useless when men are pure, and unenforceable when men are corrupt.
- Hung Tu Lao
  
  Confucius say, “Man with hand in pocket feel cocky.”
Chimel31

This is Rick’s worst article by far. I totally agree that laws are not perfect or are even applied in a misunderstood manner, which is not even mentioned in the article, and they should be fought in these cases, but the article is very weakly developed and full of extremely bad anal-ogies, including the usual one with a car, unsourced citations or generalities, like saying all laws exist only because they advance someone’s career.

Cheating in class and bribing officials even seems to be recommended instead of denounced. Suggesting to hang criminals tops them all, no civilized country has been hanging anybody anymore for years, not even mentioning that, at least for many people, killing a criminal is as criminal as the crimes he committed, and is not justice but some religious bullmanure.

Starting the article with “on the other hand” does not make sense either, even assuming that “on the one hand” is the article’s title. It’s probably because Rick is not a native English speaker, but it shows that this article has been written very quickly and not reviewed before publishing. Even the style is weird, like bolding “duty” three times. We got it already, Rick, it’s the whole point and the title (with “duty” bolded a fourth time) of the article!

I feel disappointed, there is so much more to say on the subject, hopefully without analogies or at least using relevant ones, but I am probably just a “rock-throwing masked guy” criticizing the article instead of writing my own…
Friend of the People

Rick is correct in stating that we have a duty to oppose and disobey unjust laws. Laws should act for the good of the society, preserve individual rights, and do no unjust harm. If a law doesn’t fulfill these requirements, it should be disregarded. I don’t think we have much disagreement there. The only thing left to be decided is if copyright is truly unjust.

The purpose of copyright is to ensure progress in science and the arts by assuring the creator of some content the sole right to distribute it, thereby giving them the unimpeded chance to make money. It is designed to give the creation the ability to succeed or fail on its own merits, and to pass that success or failure onto the creator in the form of material gain.

What I see this as then is a conflict between the gain of society and the progress of the arts. We have to figure out if the inventive and promise of opportunity for profit copyright provides incentivizes creation to a degree that makes it worth temporary delay from full allowance to the public. It can be argued that without copyright, many artists and scientists would not be able to devote their full time to their work.

Another consideration is that eliminating copyright places artists at the mercy of donations for sustainability. I know that most here on torrentfreak would probably donate to their favorite things, but this community is not representative of the world at large, and many would not. It must therefore be questioned if giving people the freedom to pay what they want is an acceptable model. Most if not all industries use some form of set pricing, so why should the cultural sector be different. To raise a question, why should it be open.

I don’t really have a good answer to some of the concerns I have raised. I’m on the side of copyright, but I’d like to hear from people who oppose copyright and can answer my concerns.
- Chimel31
  
  There has to be different choices than choosing or opposing the current copyright model when culture and art are concerned. Separating the ways culture is consumed/accessed and the way artists are remunerated could be one solution. For instance, a lot of people watching movies or listening to music are kids or students with no or little source of income. Currently, their only choice is either social suicide (i.e. excluding themselves from society by not listening to costly music,) or piracy. You can bet kids are smart and will make the correct choice.
  
  Copyright is not something you can reform or improve, I believe in that case we need a revolution. The music labels and movie studios are the kings of our current society, they need to be dethroned.
  
  I have no solution to propose, or rather I have too many because it’s a very complex issue, but I think we should ascertain some basic principles and build around them, like a constitution. For instance, I believe that access to the culture, and that includes movies and music, should be free. It still leaves room for commercial enterprise for premium events like concerts or movies in 3D theaters, but there also needs to be free access for the same content, for instance online viewing/listening or digital copies.
  
  Culture is a public affair, I’d rather replace copyright with a system of fair artist remuneration and recognition, but realistically, it’s not likely to happen any time soon when it’s a billions dollars market for producers who get paid the most on any physical or digital copy, and for life, even long after all production costs have been paid back with a benefit.
  - Jack
    
    Copyright is not something you can reform or improve, I believe in that case we need a revolution. The music labels and movie studios are the kings of our current society, they need to be dethroned.— Are you fucking high?
  - Friend of the People
    
    I’ll agree that there should be change. I have quite a few things I would like to see done. For example, I believe that if you buy a digital copy of something, you should be buying a license to use it for the rest of your life, and you should have the right to re-download it if you lose it to hardware failure. That doesn’t mean that piracy is the correct option, or even that it is better than the current system.
    
    “For instance, I believe that access to the culture, and that includes movies and music, should be free. It still leaves room for commercial enterprise for premium events like concerts or movies in 3D theaters, but there also needs to be free access for the same content, for instance online viewing/listening or digital copies.”
    
    I disagree. People have the right to participate in the cultural landscape, they don’t have the right to view any specific piece of culture. The artists have the right to control of their product for a set amount of time before it enters the public domain. After that, I agree that it should be put online and made free, but before that, it should be available only at the discretion of the artist. We should support artists that decide to make their work free, but we can’t force that decision upon them. Everyone has a right to participate culturally, but that doesn’t make culture free. Culture is like everything else in this world; it has a cost. There is always a low-cost alternative, like waiting for the price on some specific piece of culture to go down. Eventually, when society has advanced enough, culture should be free. Probably when we have reduced the need for work enough so that people can devote their lives to free art without draining on society’s resources. We aren’t there yet, but we’ll reach that point someday. As society stands now, universal free culture seems unrecognizable, if not actively damaging.
    
    “Currently, their only choice is either social suicide (i.e. excluding themselves from society by not listening to costly music,) or piracy. You can bet kids are smart and will make the correct choice.”
    
    First, not being up to date with music isn’t social suicide. If someone else in their social group has the music, then they’ll have opportunities to get Those aren’t their only choices. Here’s a choice, get a small job and earn enough for a cheap radio, then find a station that plays what you like. You don’t ever NEED piracy. There are always other options. They may not provide you with everything you want, but that’s a reality of life.
    
    “The music labels and movie studios are the kings of our current society, they need to be dethroned.”
    
    If you want movies or games, you need people to make movies or games. They have high production costs, so you have a lot of people involved, some of whom are by necessity not artists. Because of this, I have a hard time decrying the routes they take, because I can’t really say it’s against the will any controlling artist.
    
    Focusing instead on music labels, which only serve to distribute the work of an artist and help them rise, I can agree that there is room for change and the eventual abolishment of music labels. An alternative system can rise. The only problem is, no one is offering a good alternative system. The only solutions I’ve heard here are to rely on donations or work a day job and only produce music in the artist’s spare time, or to constantly give concerts in order to get money and establish themselves. None of these are really ideal solutions, and none of them can help an artist become know as quickly or effectively as a record label. To put it simply, I’ve heard pirates complain, but I’ve never heard a pirate solution other than to destroy them and sift through the rubble later. Until I hear a better solution than the current one, I can’t really malign the music labels to harshly.
    - Chimel31
      
      “That doesn’t mean that piracy is the correct option, or even that it is better than the current system.”
      Then we agree, I never said it was better or made a judgment, I just said teenagers don’t have another choice. Many software or hardware companies like Microsoft or Apple are also encouraging this trend with their products.
      
      “The artists have the right to control of their product for a set amount of time before it enters the public domain.”
      Again, I agree, at least if you mean the artist remuneration part. As for the public domain, as soon as a song is released, there’s probably nothing the artist can do about it, it’s like publishing your picture on the Internet. My point is that free culture and artist remuneration are not incompatible, there are different creative ways to solve these two problems.
      
      “If someone else in their social group has the music, then they’ll have opportunities to get Those aren’t their only choices”
      Well individuals sharing within thousands of small social groups or through the Internet is equally illegal if you ask the labels, and I agree with them that sharing and “piracy” (what a stupid name) are one and the same thing. But even if all libraries had 1000 times more music, books and movies available for free as an alternative to “piracy,” the system would still be totally inadequate to the way teenagers consume culture. They don’t want to be limited by whatever choices or languages are available in a library or store, and they don’t want to wait for someone to return a physical copy they can borrow, more and more don’t even want physical copies at all.
      And I am not really worried for kids who have money or parents to buy them iPods or Macs, but for the ones who could really spend that money on other more essential items.
      
      “If you want movies or games, you need people to make movies or games.”
      Totally agree. What I’m saying is, pay them a fixed price for the service they provide, that includes any benefit or risk they might take, don’t pay them a high percentage for life on every single CD, DVD or movie ticket sold.
      Right now, in these difficult economic times, many people find it indecent and arrogant to see the labels and studios executive rolling such an extravagant high life and going after the individual downloader, I am pretty sure that accounts for a big part in the spread of “piracy.” In a way, these guys are corsairs, i.e. the same as pirates, but legally appointed by Corporate.
      
      “Until I hear a better solution than the current one, I can’t really malign the music labels to harshly.”
      That shouldn’t prevent us from criticizing their solutions if we are not happy with the way they force us to consume culture. Eventually all these discussions will lead to a new system, there is no way to avoid it with the prominence of digital media.
- Compromise?
  
  Personally, I believe copyright in a limited form is necessary for both creators to support themselves and to encourage the continual production of material. 5-6 years for a book. 1-2 years for a piece of software. The point is that it remains profitable for people to produce, but also new technology isn’t kept from the world forever.
  - Friend of the People
    
    I’d personally say that copyright should last somewhat longer than that, probably close to a decade, but you have the right idea. Copyrights should expire quicker than they currently do.
    
    I will say that patents should be held separately from this. They can take a lot longer to pay off (particularly in medicine and pharmaceuticals), so they should be held to a different standard. I make this clarification because copyright does hold sway over scientific discoveries, but that shouldn’t necessarily apply to inventions and other physical designs.
    - Friend of the People
      
      First off, I’d like to thank you for being polite and bringing good points to the table. This post will be a bit short because I typed it all and accidentally hit cancel instead of post, and I’m not going to rewrite it all again. My goof, but oh well.
      
      I agree with you on the voracious appetite of the average teenager for culture. The thing is though, I don’t think that a higher appetite for culture justifies piracy. When I was a kid not so long ago, I was an avid gamer. Whenever I wanted a new game, I worked odd jobs and eventually got a part-time job to facilitate my habit. Sometimes I couldn’t get everything I wanted, or I had to wait for the price to fall. This wasn’t a tragedy. The teenagers will want more than they will be able to get. That’s part of life. It doesn’t serve them to have unlimited access to whatever they want. They are better served by working to earn it. I honestly think more harm is done by parents who give their kids everything they want than by limitations on how much content they will be able to consume.
      
      I will say that poverty does change the rules a bit. I have no sympathy for those who can pay and won’t, but for those who truly have no means, there should be a bit more leniency. They should still try to pay, but during hard times, I can understand and accept why they wouldn’t. It’s not ideal, but then again, neither is poverty.
      
      “Right now, in these difficult economic times, many people find it indecent and arrogant to see the labels and studios executive rolling such an extravagant high life and going after the individual downloader, I am pretty sure that accounts for a big part in the spread of ‘piracy.’”
      
      I’ve always thought that many people just dislike seeing people become rich of cultural products. I’ve talked to people who think that musicians and game makers have no right to make as much money as they do. I’m against this argument because everyone has the right to free enterprise and earning as much as they are able to without resorting to unethical or illegal practices. I will agree that large companies suing individuals rubs me a bit, but I can see why. Copyright violation is a crime, and they have a right to prosecute. If people really don’t like the law, they should petition their representatives to change it, and expose any lobby that acts against the petition through illegal means.
      
      “My point is that free culture and artist remuneration are not incompatible, there are different creative ways to solve these two problems.”
      
      I’m not sure I agree. Artist remuneration in a free-culture society seems like it would rely on premium services, not the actual content. For example, a musician earns money from a concert and movies earn money when they are seen in a theatre. This doesn’t work for some thing. Some forms of culture are reliant on the copy itself and not premium services. Take games for example. The game is reliant solely on its content and has no further service to offer. Some games can offer the service of multiplayer servers, but for many games, most of the really good ones in fact, multiplayer would be unnecessary, if not actively damaging to the experience. I don’t see a way free culture would allow for the game company to be paid at all outside of donations.
      
      “That shouldn’t prevent us from criticizing their solutions if we are not happy with the way they force us to consume culture. Eventually all these discussions will lead to a new system, there is no way to avoid it with the prominence of digital media.”
      
      Oh, I agree. There are problems and the current system won’t address them without criticism. No argument there. I just don’t think a completely open system is where we should be heading to. But change, and a lessening of power for the top tier; I can get behind that.
      
      Last thing: I want you to clarify this. I’ll address what I think you’re saying, but I’m really not sure, so please go into a little more detail if you respond.
      
      “What I’m saying is, pay them a fixed price for the service they provide, that includes any benefit or risk they might take, don’t pay them a high percentage for life on every single CD, DVD or movie ticket sold.”
      
      My question here is who is supposed to pay them this fixed price. If the consumer doesn’t pay it, then who? And why should they have a fixed price? If they have a superior product that is wildly popular, they should earn more money off of it. They have a right to earn tons of money if they make something wonderful, and to lose money if they make something that people won’t buy. I could go on, but I don’t think I’m addressing what you meant to say. Please clarify and I will withdraw this criticism if it does not apply.
      
      Thank you for the debate so far. Hope I hear back from you. Sorry if the grammar is a bit off, it’s 12:40 here.
    - Chimel31
      
      Damn you @Friend of the People for losing your answer, I was looking forward to it! ^-^
      
      I have no problem with artists making millions, only with non-creative people like producers living off the artist’s and public on albums and movies for which they have long been fully paid for.
      I can’t really talk about games, I’d rather stick to books, movies and music, mostly because they are already part of the school studies for some.
      
      Concerts probably won’t work for studio artists, this is a complex issue. Still, nothing that can’t be solved. The Scandinavian countries who pay kids to study made me dream about a system where kids are granted say $100 of monthly credit to purchase books or music. That would be one way to reconcile free music and remunerated artists. Of course, these $100 need to come from taxes or reallocating some of the half trillion dollars military budget, so we’ll never see it in the U.S. Incidentally, $100 a month per kid is exactly the amount of the whole Department of Education budget for 2012, with about 65 million kids and students to serve. (I extrapolated, it’s 54 million 5-17yo kids.)
      
      When I said pay the producers a fixed price, I don’t mean the same price for all producers and all artists, or to change who pays what. I mean, if it costs $5M to produce a specific album for a specific artist with a specific producer, stick to this fixed $5M cost; Once the producer gets his $5M back from all the concert, music and merchandise sales, he does not get a single penny more from the same product. Which means that if the producer used to get 20% on any music wholesale, the album could get 20% cheaper, or part of the 20% could go to the artist or to a production fund for new albums so that other artists are not so dependent on producers any more, or a thousand other uses…
    - Friend of the People
      
      Well, even if it was shorter than it would have been, I’d still say my posts are pretty long.
      
      I have some problem with producers making the vast majority of the money from sales like they do now. I do think they have the right to make a profit, even a quite handsome profit because they’re the ones putting up the capital to make the artist’s widespread proliferation possible, but I would agree that there should be smaller percentages given to them.
      
      “Once the producer gets his $5M back from all the concert, music and merchandise sales, he does not get a single penny more from the same product.”
      
      This makes more sense now. I withdraw my earlier criticism. This is an idea that deserves consideration. I think it’s a good start. It actually gives me an idea of how a more balanced contract.
      
      First, the problem. I’m not sure you could get people to agree to this. People often view production in the same way they view investment; they put money behind the artist, and they profit if the artist succeeds, but they lose money if the artist fails. This scenario seems like one where the producer stands to make nothing, and that seems like it would remove all of their incentive to aid the artist. I’d propose an alternate scenario where they have their normal percentage of money until they get enough money to cover their costs and perhaps to give them some small profit, after which they get a much smaller percentage of the profit from the sales.
      
      I’d say we should support artists who manage to negotiate better contracts or find new models that don’t require agents and producers or require them to smaller degrees than the current system.
      
      “Of course, these $100 need to come from taxes”
      
      I admit, the idea sounds appealing to me, but I have to be wary of any system that requires government intervention in the financial or cultural sectors for any purpose other than preventing harm. Government is by nature inefficient, and to be honest, I wouldn’t trust them with any fund like this. I’d rather try to find a good private sector approach.
      
      To be honest, I don’t think completely free culture is workable in this day and age. I think we’ll get there, but I think it requires a society that has a far lesser need for work than this one. In short, a culture where people don’t really need to work and can pursue leisure and cultural activities at will is one where free culture is sustainable. I think it would be a challenge to make it work before that. Not impossible by any means, but I haven’t thought of a good way to make it work.
      
      Having some kind of fund to help artists avoid production teams seems like a good idea. Viral marketing could be of aid in this. Worth considering.
    - Chimel31
      
      “I’d propose an alternate scenario where they have their normal percentage of money until they get enough money to cover their costs and perhaps to give them some small profit, after which they get a much smaller percentage of the profit from the sales.”
      I totally disagree, granting them a percentage for life, even a small one, makes them leeches. The $5M I mentioned would already include all profits and their own provision for risk-taking, they don’t need to keep sucking the artists’ blood or money after the deal is done, so your concerns are valid but already covered.
      
      It is precisely the fact that artists are considered only as a financial investment that revolts me. Every person during production is paid for a given job, like renting the recording studio for x hours, designing the CD cover, paying the sound engineer, paying TV ad spots, etc. It’s only these guys who happen to have the money that don’t get paid for their services, but for life. Let them make a profit all right, but let’s also introduce some decency in how it’s done. Without ethics, the cycle is not sustainable, as demonstrated by the trading and banking worlds recently.
      
      And anyway, I am not pretending to offer a solution, these are just half-baked examples to start a discussion, no doubt they have many pitfalls and there are many more issues to consider.
    - Friend of the People
      
      “The $5M I mentioned would already include all profits and their own provision for risk-taking, they don’t need to keep sucking the artists’ blood or money after the deal is done, so your concerns are valid but already covered.”
      
      I think I misunderstood something. The way I read it, I thought you proposed that they would get back the money they put into it, and not a penny more. The gist of my argument is that there needs to be a profit involved for producers to invest.
      
      If I understand your idea, you are saying that producers should be allowed to earn money up to a certain percentage or amount past what they put in. If this is what you are saying, I can agree. Allowing them to make a certain percentage off what they originally gave leaves them room for profit, and encourages them to take risks on more unknown artists in order to keep profits high. This seems like a good solution.
      
      You are correct that this seems like a good way to introduce ethics to the industry. Limiting profit on any one specific item encourages diversification to new artists instead of relying off of a few. I would like to see this idea explored more.
- Scary Devil Monastery
  
  Here’s the problem. At the core of things “copyright” is “Information Control”.
  
  That in itself is harm. You can never “own” information. Of any kind.
BIGBALLS191

WOT A LOAD OF CRAP…LAWS ARE THERE TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT FROM THE LAWLESS…U TIT
http://www.facebook.com/eric.boehm Jack Murdock

Every society needs order and thats why we cant just pick and choose which laws we folllow. Criminals always feel that what they did was justified and they frequently blame society and it’s laws for their actions which makes this a moot point.

Who decides what laws are an unjust and which ones aren’t? What are proposing is essentially anarchy and will take the modern world back 2000 years. Is this the kind of progressive ideas filesharers have in store for us?

“Laws are not made because they are righteous. Laws are made because they advance somebody’s political career.”
So you really can’t see how having laws against rape benefits society? But the law you are really hinting as is copyright, isn’t it? The point of the copyright laws is so that artists are paid for their work, allowing them to rightfully profit and continue doing what they love to do. It helps the artist make a living. Im curious. Do you think that this is wrong, Rick? Do you see something righteous in depriving them of their rightful compensation?

Im sorry but, Creative works are not :”knowledge”, rick. Knowlege doesn’t take tens of millions of dollars to create or months of hard work. If you are looking for knowledge, what you want is wikipedia.
- I am a sausage not a hotdog
  
  I’m am now officially convinced you are more than ever a money-mongering idiot.
  - I am a sausage not a hotdog
    
    whoopsy lol!!
    Still doesn’t change what i think about you.However you decide to correct my spelling.The fact is you live in this world where you think money is the answer to everything and copyright supports artist.What artist do you support ,Oh let me guess the ones who claim to love their fans, but are willing to sue them because they share their music.
    In an open society we as human are allowed to share music.How else are we going to tell others about artist or who they are?I mean what “oh hey check out this song wait pay me first then you can hear it.”
    No sorry if i can publicly say to my friend listen to this song from such and such what’s the difference online not a damn thing so take your copyright law and shove it.
- Libertarian
  
  You deception artist! Who PAYS you for writing comments here? First of all, the definition of “society” is relative. You referred to the majority of society, and generalized it to the whole of society. The majority people are not rapists, and can get laid legally if they wanted to. But there are a minority of people who cannot get laid legally, and who listens to them? When it comes to copyright, a lot of young people consider it the norm to share without paying any regard to copyright, and these young people may soon become the majority. This norm is what career politicians and policemen try to change in exchange for career advancement by enforcing laws that these young people cannot identify themselves with. And since when is it a RIGHT for artists to get compensated for their SPAM? The only thing artists do is to lower the productive output of society by craving for people’s attention! Artists are leeches of attention and productive output, just like marketing people! And the biggest leeches are the lawyers and copyright owners that “represent” them! Who will compensate me for paying so much attention to an industry that spreads so much deception, fear and hatred against people who solely want to share information with each other, regardless of its origin? Nobody, that’s who. Any you know what? I am PROUD over it, because my opinion comes from the bottom of my heart, and not from some lobbyist’s deep pocket!
  - Ers
    
    “And since when is it a RIGHT for artists to get compensated for their SPAM?”
    
    They have a right to be compensated by people who use their product. If you don’t want to pay them, don’t use it. If it’s spam, don’t listen to it and don’t buy it. Simple as that.
- Devanite
  
  “tens of millions of dollars to create or months of hard work”
  
  see what I mean about overspending and throwing money away Jack? Remember when the US gave a bailout to the automotive companies and they all flew in their own private luxury jets from and to the same destination, do you remember what was said to those people then?
  
  It is a statement of fact that we are not responsible for your financial stupidity if you WANT to throw away tens of millions on a product, that is your CHOICE but that ultimately does not mean that your product should be compensated by the taxpayers money through laws and police/courts
- Friend of the People
  
  “Every society needs order and thats why we cant just pick and choose which laws we folllow. Criminals always feel that what they did was justified and they frequently blame society and it’s laws for their actions which makes this a moot point.”
  
  I don’t often agree with you Jack, but I will (conditionally) agree here. Unless the laws are causing active harm to others, I do believe that people should obey them, even if they dislike them. Legislative change is the the established way for societies to remove bad laws. If not enough people care to elect a politician who will change it, than society has decided that the current situation is not worth changing. We all have to put up with some laws we don’t like from society. That’s the heart of the social contract. In order to gain the benefits of society, we make ourselves answerable and subject to the morals of the majority, so long as those morals do not violate our rights.
- Tiger97a
  
  no they should be paid but i also think that i shouldn’t have to pay them to live in the life style that they do also, if the studios would understand that this is like rock and roll and its unstoppable and getting more accepted everyday by main stream media then don’t you think its time for a better business plan? all its gonna take is for a computer to be hacked showing some senator or something like that getting paid under the table to start the ball rolling and then its gonna be like a dam being busted.
  yea everybody should be paid, but lets face it, being able to buy three castles is gonna be the extreme and sports figures are in the same boat soon the price of a ticket is gonna be out of most peoples pockets and all the greedy owners and players will come to a understanding when they look in the stands and they are half empty.
  the biggest thing is that if the studios embrace the p2p thing and set a studio up and charge a small fee for each torrent and ask for donations like the rest do and the way all spell it out they are making a lot of money then they wouldn’t loose would they but i guess some would like you would be out of a job.
  
  each generation that is coming up has more computer sense then the other and less problems thinking that its wrong to do this p2p thing and all are having no luck changing that thinking either all are as i have seen the research showing it.
  
  but your biggest pain is people like me that are in the baby boomer generation and embracing p2p because we are able to see what you are doing to our internet and government leaders as they are being bought off with promise of jobs, money and presents and in the next 6 weeks their will be a story release on this.
  
  again i say yes lets pay these people but at a reasonable rate for the content and if i buy it i own it. i should be allowed to make a copy for my own self and put on my computer if that is what i want to do.
  
  i shouldn’t have to go buy extra copy just so i can have it at two locations. i don’t upload but i do see what is out their then i do go buy it but usually when its on sale for 5$ to a previously view movie at a local rental house and they have my number and call me when the hot ones go on sale as i have over 4 thousand movies right now but also a few pirated ones also as i don’t just go and buy junk blind no more as that is what you people want to stop and hate about the internet.
StevO

Same sex marriage used to be against the law.
Joe-is-a-spass

PROTECT IP Act was made to safeguard a handful of politician’s bank balance for a few generations down the road. Corrupt people who deserves a public hanging.
Chevron

“A person who considers the orders, rules or laws to be wrong has a duty to defy them. ”
Urk. That is an extremely simplistic condensation of the rights of conscience!

Inherent to the primacy of conscience is a corresponding duty to a) fully inform oneself of opposing views of the matter under consideration and b) give proper heed to the authority and competence of the lawgiver, respecting that there are other competing duties. Only after such searching, and a subsequent inability to reconcile a given action with conscience, is an appeal to the primacy of conscience justified.

But the point to emphasise here is that the primacy of conscience does not justify the breaking of external laws on a whim: it is a process not to be taken lightly, and with full regard to the possible consequences. An appeal to conscience *does not* change the absolute morality of a given act (whatever that might be), but justifies that act in the eyes of conscience (and indeed before God, if one is to bring this discussion into its more usual theological sphere).
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Phil Landry

Civil disobedience: I do it everyday! My bt client is a tool to destroy the market driven arts! Art should be art, people should enjoy it and share it!
Chevron

@ Chime “killing a criminal is as criminal as the crimes he committed, and is not justice but some religious bullmanure.”

A few points:

Killing a criminal is not itself criminal if done through lawful authority, because in law it is considered a justifiable homicide.

It remains immoral in an absolute sense (“Do not kill”, or somesuch variation thereof), but the action is justified through the authority invested in the state, according to its constitution, to order civil affairs.

Capital punishment in the Western (‘Christian’) world is in no way linked to religious justice. Rather, Christianity has recognised throughout history the need for the state to exercise its authority in ways that sometimes require killing (eg. war, civil justice, maintaining civil order, etc). Dismissing capital punishment as ‘religious bullmanure’ illustrates more your prejudices against religion than historical reality.
- Chimel31
  
  Thanks, but give me credit for knowing my definitions and knowing that a crime is only defined as per what the law authorizes or not. That’s why I said “for many people”, for instance for people who live a country where capital punishment itself ‘is’ criminal.
  
  Well there is little controversy that capital punishment is a direct result of the extremist and retrograd “an eye for an eye” policy and such stoning to death divagations, and I don’t limit my comment to the Christian religions either like you infer I do, but again, I said “for many people” so please don’t make it like I stated a generality and admit that there are people who may not share your views.
  
  And I’d rather stick to the original debate than talk about what was just a terrible, irrelevant, and incorrect analogy from Rick in the first place: The Hague’s International Criminal Court has never killed or hanged a war criminal since its inception.
anon

it only works if everyone does it, if you just do this, then nothing happens and you go to jail/prison
Foff

Another set of gray laws are drug laws. More people are killed on roads everyday then ever died from drugs. Not every drug user becomes a hopeless addict just like not everyone who enjoys a drink becomes an alcoholic. So lets lets get stoned and download some more and f stupid laws.
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Anonymous

“Fetal damage”? Is this some anti-choice shit? Also, anyone bringing in a rape comparison here for any reason is wrong. None of this is like rape, at all. Rape is the only thing that is like rape.
Anonymous

“Fetal damage”? Is this some anti-choice shit? Also, anyone bringing in a rape comparison here for any reason is wrong. None of this is like rape, at all. Rape is the only thing that is like rape.
Anonymous

“Fetal damage”? Is this some anti-choice shit? Also, anyone bringing in a rape comparison here for any reason is wrong. None of this is like rape, at all. Rape is the only thing that is like rape.
Anonymous

This totally reminds me of a speech Captain America gives to Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man #537. I have the exact speech from the issue saved on my computer, I’d post it up, but then you never know who would go report me or something. Jack or one of the many people on here who believe strongly that everyone who doesn’t fully believe in copyright and it’s rightness is a criminal might go tell on me. And I love comics so I’d refuse to fight it out legally with Marvel. But, since the internet is such a wonderful thing, I can link to a website that has the exact speech I’m referring to on it. I recommend that anyone who found this article interesting and Rick’s words check out the link. It is very interesting and might make you think.

http://captain-america.us/articles/civil-war.htm
- http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
  
  Hit the nail on the head with that speech.
  
  Remember: At one time, homosexuals were deemed evil. At one time, heterosexuals outside of marriage were deemed evil. At one time, blacks having sex with whites was deemed evil.
  
  You should NEVER back down from what you know is right, no matter what people say, no matter how hated that might make you. Because the fact is that if your position is backed up with facts? Your position is 99% of the time the right one.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Nguyen/1108713745 Michael Nguyen

Depends i feel it like this way. One person has a movie that he wants to share to the world. In a sense were all his friends and he’s just sharing us a movie that he bought legally. Not if the original copy was obtain legally through bootleggers are stealing then yea i think thats a issue.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Nguyen/1108713745 Michael Nguyen

Depends i feel it like this way. One person has a movie that he wants to share to the world. In a sense were all his friends and he’s just sharing us a movie that he bought legally. Not if the original copy was obtain legally through bootleggers are stealing then yea i think thats a issue.
Jd

its sickening how laws get passed due to corruption and money stuffed in their pockets.
Jd

its sickening how laws get passed due to corruption and money stuffed in their pockets.
Anon

Actually, all laws are guidelines and all of them should be judged by yourself. If you decide, that murdering is right, then it is right. A lot of people will yell at me right about now claiming, that what I propose is an anarchist society or something like that. We do not need strict laws to prohibit people. We need more wisdom to improve our judgement regarding right and wrong. And where do people receive wisdom? Monks receive it by being silent and listening their own thoughts and by understanding why they feel about things in a certain way. Other people, who do not like to talk with themselves all day long receive it from their parents. Unfortunately, parents are at work during the day and too tired or too timid to teach their children at evening. Making people work for living is an excellent method of preventing people from gaining wisdom. It is profitable for governments as institiutions to prevent people from obtaining wisdom. If a huge group of people obtained high wisdom, they would never in their right state of mind elect people who are in the governments today. It is not even about money that they do it. It is the mighty feeling of dominating and controlling other people. Actually, it is profitable for them to make you believe, that they are in it only for money. This way you will never look for other possible ulterior motives that they are doing what they are doing. Do not seek to control and master other people, because you might start liking the feeling of power and might. What good are laws prohibiting murder and rape going to help if you have aquired a taste for power? Only seek wisdom and knowledge, for truth shall set you free.
- Friend of the People
  
  Uh huh. Right. So, without laws, people would behave. So, what should we do about the people who do decide it is acceptable to murder and rape? If he kills my brother, I kill him? Is that how it should work? We have laws because humans by nature will do harm to each other if they are not prevented from doing so. Your solution of simply having everyone become wise is idealistic. If laws disappeared at this very instant, there would still be murder, there would just be no one to prevent or prosecute it, barring the inevitable lynch mob of course.
  
  “We need more wisdom to improve our judgment regarding right and wrong.”
  
  So, what do we do when someone uses his judgment and decides that murder is an acceptable way to handle disappointment or anger? Do we simply let them do it?
  
  You aren’t describing a society, you’re describing a utopia, where no one has any desire to do wrong. That isn’t the world we live in. Read up on the concept of the social contract. We have laws to prevent us from doing harm to each other, and we have police and other people to prosecute the laws because no one will obey the laws without the threat of punishment looming over their heads. Humans are not naturally pure and good creatures. We are animals, and like animals, we are territorial, violent, and driven by instinct. We aren’t built to live peacefully, we’re built for survival. We use society and laws to suppress these base urges and create a better place for us to live. Removing laws removes the force behind the compulsion for the unwise majority to behave well.
  
  “Actually, all laws are guidelines and all of them should be judged by yourself.”
  
  No, laws are not guidelines, they are commandments on behavior. Part of being in a society is that you are governed by the majority, and so long as the rules made do not infringe on your rights, the morality of the majority can be made into law. Law means nothing if it is viewed as a guideline. It’s not a suggestion, it’s the prohibition of behavior that either causes harm or disrupts the community. If you don’t like the laws, leave the are or petition for their change. Disobeying laws that don’t directly cause harm. removes the value of the system of laws.
  
  In short, your solution won’t work in the real world. I apologize for the rudeness I’ve almost certaintly shown, but to be honest, I see this proposition as so naive to the way the world works as to be actively frustration. If you post a reply, I promise I’ll be back to usual polite (or at least, politer than this) self soon.
Anon

EDIT: The sentence “It is not even about money that they do it.” talks about government officials.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IZ5BM5GNLA54OADSWGSXAMA7SY Jay

Dammit, Rick!

You aren’t supposed to make sense. This is the internet!
Gabor

“No, laws are not guidelines, they are commandments on behavior. Part of being in a society is that you are governed by the majority, and so long as the rules made do not infringe on your rights, the morality of the majority can be made into law.”

What about the Nuremberg laws, for example? From this viewpoint, the betrayer of Anne Frank was a nice citizen who simply reported a crime…
- Friend of the People
  
  As I said in that post (or maybe another before it, that specific one did annoy me enough that I might have forgotten to clarify), laws that cause active harm are the ones we morally have to disobey. A law that infringes on a person’s natural rights, as the Nuremberg Laws unquestionably did, are separated from normal laws. Normal laws represent the restrictions a community places on itself. They represent the morals of the community, and if people disagree with those morals but still wish to live in the community, they have the option of petitioning and voting against their current representatives so that they can appoint someone who will change the laws. It is a slow process, but not an unjust one. Laws like the Nuremberg Laws that infringe on the natural rights of a person and cause active harm are in a different category.
  
  The morality of the majority can be enforced so long as that morality does not infringe on the rights of another. Copyright does not fulfill the requirement of being actively harmful and infringing on human rights, so we can’t say we have a moral imperative to disobey it.
  - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
    
    The problem is that ‘morality’ laws 99% of the time (unless you are talking about forcible rape laws and murder laws) do infringe on the rights of another. Even the sexual morality laws do.
Gabor

We must logically analyze whether we do any harm to others or not. Cracking the DRM on a DVD to be able to convert and view it on your PDA or phone is illegal, but does absolutely no harm to anyone.

But this works in the opposite way too: it’s legal to listen to loud music during the day, even if you know that the neighbor is a shift worker and wants to sleep, but our “moral compass” says it isn’t right to do so, and yes, we should use a headphone in that situation, regardless of the law.
Gabor

We must logically analyze whether we do any harm to others or not. Cracking the DRM on a DVD to be able to convert and view it on your PDA or phone is illegal, but does absolutely no harm to anyone.

But this works in the opposite way too: it’s legal to listen to loud music during the day, even if you know that the neighbor is a shift worker and wants to sleep, but our “moral compass” says it isn’t right to do so, and yes, we should use a headphone in that situation, regardless of the law.
AnarchyNow

Kill all the billionaires, starting with kings and queens that shouldn’t even still exist and then the world would be free.
AnarchyNow

Kill all the billionaires, starting with kings and queens that shouldn’t even still exist and then the world would be free.
- Anon
  
  No, then there would be vacancies. Someone else would rise, probably the leader of whoever killed the billionaires in the first place. And then we’re a dictatorship.
- Arindam
  
  Surely, we should kill the system that creates billionaires – just as the French Revolution killed the system that creates monarchs. (Yes it killed Louis XVI as well, but that’s not why it’s remembered.)
Gabor

One of the best example of the situation with the laws is the regulation of bicycle lighting in Germany. The law (StVZO) was made in the late forties, and called for the then best lighting, dynamo-powered standard incandescent bulbs. It was intended to ban candles and other inferior methods of lighting, therefore to improve safety.
But it also banned more advanced things introduced later like halogen bulbs and lamps with batteries and capacitors to provide adequate light while standing or riding at slow speed. The latter resulted in several accidents and some deaths, where the standing bike without lights was overlooked by drivers. Second lamps are illegal too.

The law is still in effect, and was actively enforced until about 2005. Now after numerous accidents coming from it it’s no longer taken strictly, so now bikes are often sold with LED lamps containing capacitors.

In Germany you must break the letter of the law to ride safely after sunset… This is why we MUST think logically and decide whether it is actually good for others if we adhere to the letter of the law!
- Friend of the People
  
  This is an example of a law that has lost the mandate of the community and that has lost it’s original purpose. To put it simply, it should have been repealed, and the representatives have failed in their responsibility by not repealing it.
  
  There is a distinction between laws that have lost their original purpose and are as such obsolete but still on the books, and laws that still have a purpose, even if it is one you disagree with. The law in Germany should have been subject to change, but from what it sounds like, no one in the community wants it anymore. It has lost the mandate of majority, and if the government was paying attention, it would have been repealed by now. You can’t equate laws that have lost their original purpose and that no one cares about with laws that are still debated and that still have supporters.
  
  To put it simply, you aren’t violating the will of the community when you break this law. Copyright is still being debated. People still care about it. You can’t take the old law and use it to claim a moral imperative that applies to modern laws. You can say that we should have constant reexamining of old laws to see if they fit current times, but that’s about all you can take from it.
  
  A bit off topic, but did you know that in some states, it’s illegal to till the soil with an elephant. Even more weird, but in Washington state, it’s illegal for a virgin to have sex. How do people come up with this stuff?
  - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
    
    You know how hard it is to repeal a law? NEARLY FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE. The only time I remember a law being repealed was with Prohibition, and that was a Constitutional Amendment.
Mikehunt99m

This ted talk takes an interesting look how a distinct lack of copyright laws spurs creativity in the very large fashion industry.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html
Illuminati

The only law I know is common sense.
- 123
  
  Common sense does not exist. It’s a term used to normalize your views. Common sense differs between everyone. the only things that are common is eat to live and screw to reproduce.
- 123
  
  Common sense does not exist. It’s a term used to normalize your views. Common sense differs between everyone. the only things that are common is eat to live and screw to reproduce.
  - Guest
    
    Is it right to kill another human being just for fun? No. Isn’t this common sense?
    - 123
      
      In this culture, it is. Except for the serial killers of course. And in past cultures, it was common sense that killing another human being for any reason was acceptable if they were an inferior class. Here’s something. It’s common sense to some people that if someone insults you, then you should kill or assault him for the insult.
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arvin

I think the most import thing is who make the law indeed!
In some country link american, law almost is the aspect of the people’ mind. But in other country like china, the law is make by the people who control the country, and the most import is that the law always are useless.
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iwear5watches

“You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.”

- Malcolm X

“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”

- Martin Luther King Jr.
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