I would also like to address a potential source of miscommunication: the definition of civil disobedience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience Gandhi, Rosa Parks, Henry David Thoreau and many others have engaged in civil disobedience, in the name of civil rights. They knowingly and consciously broke the law, and made no effort to hide or evade punishment, accepting the punishment in an effort to expose an unjust law for what it was. People pirating movies in their basement are generally not engaging in civil disobedience. Civil disobedience over copyright on movies would be something more like going into a public square with big signs, ripping DVDs for people in violation of the DMCA and giving them away on the street with pamphlets attached until the cops came and arrested you, followed by a long prison term where you write passionate and inspired books as your health declines, and people march around outside with "Free DVD Dude!" signs. (This is of course a silly example that I would not actually recommend.) Civil disobedience is an effort to turn the state's power against itself, by letting it abuse its power in a dramatically public way that makes everyone horrified. People downloading illicit movies in their basement generally don't care whether they are breaking the law, they are not breaking the law to make a point or expose the injustice of the law, they are breaking the law to get free movies. They are also not breaking the law publicly and accepting the legal consequences, they break the law quietly and are hoping that they will not get caught, and if the MPAA tracked them down they would probably settle the case to save their college funds. And honestly, it probably isn't worth going bankrupt or going to jail for Hollywood movies anyway, this is not an issue where civil disobedience is necessary or justified in my humble opinion. That doesn't mean that the law isn't absurd or unjust, it almost certainly isn't right to utterly ruin a person for downloading a few bloody songs, the punishment does not fit the crime (I understand that the punishment is less severe if you physically go into a store and steal a DVD from the shelf). But I do not see a potential benefit to civil disobedience in this case that would make it worthwhile to suffer the statutory damages. Do you see the difference between downloading movies in your basement and e.g. fighting to keep the Diebold memos available to the public? Peace, ~Nelson~ Clifford Conley Owens III wrote: > I hear a lot of people in this organization speak very highly of civil > disobedience, and it seems like some of us are just waiting for an > opportunity to justify breaking the law and sticking it to "the man." I > suppose I could right a very long-winded article on why I think civil > disobedience is a bad idea, but I'm not much of a writer, so I'll just > say a few things that come to mind. > > One example that often comes up is piracy, but I feel that that helps > out the mpaa/riaa far more than just boycotting it all together. I > suppose most of you don't know this, but I used to be on the far other > side of this discussion (about copyright/culture). I remember arguing > about copyright and piracy with someone in a philosophy class in high > school (and imagine me talking like a 16-year-old version of Dan > Glickman). I thought that everyone who disagreed with me was being > immature. How ironic that over four years later I became a grad student > and the person I was arguing with was one of my first chapter members. > But the thing is, I *still* think that all the people in the room who > disagreed were being immature! It wasn't until I discovered > *constructive* solutions like the FSF and CC that I really changed my > mind about things. > > I'm open for discussion, but if this organization ever plans a civil > disobedience event, you can count me out of the event, and possibly out > of the organization. > > ~Conley > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
