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And, building on what Thesaidon said, there are few clearer examples of the operation of bad intellectual property laws than in the area of academic journals. Locking up scientific knowledge, usually gained through publicly funded research, does real and lasting harm, and I would argue not only fails to advance science, but in fact retards it. Another example is patents for lifesaving drugs. This is less clearcut because of the possibility that such drugs would never have been developed without the existing patent incentives. Yet the situation is clearly untenable where the price tag for these drugs is condemning people to death. Yet there seems to be little effort devoted to looking at changes to the existing system or other means of funding/incentivizing drug development whilst also ensuring no one is condemned to death through excessive prices.
Laws which operate so badly in practice can and should be dealt with by legislatures, but seldom are, usually because of lobbying by vested interests with very deep pockets. When legislatures abrogate their responsibility in this regard, it is certainly legitimate to discuss how the needed changes may be brought about. I am not by saying this advocating piracy or even civil disobedience. The question raised is more whether such measures can ever be justified before discussion of any particular cases. This is not appropriate for discussion on Mobileread, even in the political forums, as to argue that such measures can be justified, at least in the case of copyright, is to condone piracy in some limited circumstances, which is of course in breach of the relevant guidelines.
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