I have enjoyed this discussion and find the aspect of civil disobedience quite intriguing. The links below reference wikipedia articles.
The USA often employs social contract theory in it's political philosophy. Locke <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience> was quite influence in USA style social contract and his ideas of "revolution is not only a right but an obligation in some circumstances" had "profound influence on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States." It was believed that Britain had broken its social contract and the American revolutionaries were just (not terrorist). I think USA's application copyright is fundamentally unconstitutional and the USA's international play with its copyright policy is repugnant at best. I find civil disobedience as an important and valuable tool for political expression and the circumstances warrant a revolution. I live in the USA. Currently, civil disobedience could be easily be distorted as terrorism. Perhaps I am stuck in my own world without enough to compare but I find my government to be rather scary. It is quite tempting to be shy about breaking copyright. Would that be civil disobedience or something else? Mohandas Gandhi was very public about making of his own salt. In fact he made an event out of the simple act to draw more attention to the issue. Civil disobediance is "active" and " professed"<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience>I have a hard time thinking someone breaking applicable copyright law in secret is protesting with civil disobedience - no matter how unjust the the copyright or other laws maybe. Maybe you dont need to flagrant about it, but I would think one should at least write thier government representatives about their protest and local news/media to persuade public opinion. I do not agree with what the USA government is doing in regards to Megavideo in any way. I do not think that the perhaps questionable acts of Megavideo justify any wrongs from a government. The point I would make is that some of Megavideo's customers, in regards to copyrighted material, may have been protesting with civil disobedience, some may not have been. Megavideo itself was not actively and publicly protesting copyright laws (that I am aware of). If Megavideo was distorting information such as the top downloads list I think they make have been doing more than failing at complying horribly wrong laws, and intentionally breaking the law in "secret" as a monetary gain and not in political expression. (We can still use Megavideo's story to defend our principles and freedom with out necessarily defending Megavideo.) Civil disobedience must be more than merely breaking the law. My best, tom
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