Quote:
Originally Posted by jament
Shaggy's right. And the only morally valid reason to illegally download books is as a form of protest and civil disobedience against the publishing industry.
If you object to the availability, pricing, DRM and restrictions of e-books not only do you have a responsibility, as Rawls argues, to communicate your objection by illegally downloading as many books as you can find, you also have a responsibility to publicize it and make sure that the public and government know what you're doing and why.
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I'm not sure that this is a justifiable reading of Rawls.
Rawls (in chapter 6 of
A Theory of Justice) argues that civil disobedience is
only justifiable in a democracy; it can be seen as an address to a common background sense of justice. Even in a democracy mistakes will occur and civil disobedience is an appeal to this in an attempt to rectify
obvious and clear cases of injustice.
It is clear that this is a very limited use of the term. You need to demonstate that this is a case of blatant injustice and that one can invoke "a shared conception of justice."
Moreover, contary to your assetion that he would have approved mass piracy, Rawls also makes it clear that civil disobedience "does not require that the civilly disobedient act breach the same law that is being protested."
(
A Theory of Justice, Chapter 6, p. 364.)