When people view the current law as unjust, they are more likely to break it. This has a very negative impact on society as a whole as it makes them more cynica

When people view the current law as unjust, they are more likely to break it. This has a very negative impact on society as a whole as it makes them more cynical about their institutions and leads to more rule breaking unrelated to the unjust law. It would be in everybody's best interest to rethink how we approach digital property rights across borders. Paul Robinson had recently discussed this in a podcast: > One of the chapters we have is on Prohibition, American Prohibition. Which I think is really wonderful. Because that really demonstrates that dynamic on a large scale. For a lot of interesting reasons we throw it in, Prohibition. But then it's broken so often, even by public officials. Nobody takes it seriously. So, it's no surprise that you have a lot of violation of prohibition laws. What's less obvious to people but I think really telling, is that during Prohibition, crime rates generally went up. Even if it had nothing to do with Prohibition. You had crime rates going up because there was this general effect. People would look at the criminal law, see that they simply didn't see drinking alcohol as condemnable conduct and that undermined their faith that the criminal really knew what was condemnable and what wasn't; saw a lot of people breaking the criminal law and not feeling bad about it. There was, the community sense was that the criminal law was just being silly and out of step here. And that reduction in its reputation, it's moral reputation, translated into a lot of other areas. It was a very bad time for crime, until Prohibition was repealed and criminal law started trying to earn back some of its lost reputation. [0] [0] http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/08/paul_robinson_o.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/08/paul_robinson_o.htm...