Software Privacy

This is the Computer / Internet issue that I am interested to that has ethical and social implications to our society nowadays Software Piracy. What is piracy? It is the unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material: or it is robbery. Piracy or Software Piracy is illegal in any law. Software piracy hurts every one in the cyber world even it is cheap many are affected with this crime, the software developers, software owners, and especially the software users. This illegal distribution and duplication of copyrighted software has significant impact to the company. It cost billions of dollars a year in job looses. Yes indeed pirated software is cheap and affordable but do you know the risk in using them?

The risks in using or purchasing Pirated Software are:

Quality. It often lacks key elements and documentation, and comes with no warranty protection or upgrade options.

Viruses. Untested, counterfeit discs may be infected with viruses that will damage your hard drive or cripple your network, without the benefit of technical support.
At Work. Copying or using illegally copied software at work puts the entire company at risk for copyright infringement. Pirated software that is either dysfunctional or that contains viruses wastes company resources and drives up IT costs.

With these risks would still like to use pirated software even they are cheap and affordable but less quality vulnerable to viruses and using copyright software that is illegal? I guess not? I guess some will agree to my opinion that many people here in the Philippines or even in others often purchasing pirated software rather that original ones. Let’s ask why? Many people today are practical when it comes to cost, they still continue to purchase pirated software rather than the original ones without license even their are some bugs in the software and even it is illegal as long as it works. This product doesn’t even meet the customer’s satisfaction due to his poor quality. How will people know that the software they are purchasing is pirated ones? For me their are two ways in differentiating the software if its pirated or not first and foremost check if the software has any software licenses or check if the software is in a box. Second check the price if you find out that it is too cheap for the software then it is pirated.

According to some computer, economics and legal experts believe that if a solution to the so-called software piracy situation were truly desired, then an important first step would be a reexamination of the entire issue by unbiased parties or representatives of all interests and points of view rather than just by those representing the views of the large software developers. However, they are generally aware that this could be very difficult because of the strong forces that favor the status quo, particularly the great political influence of the largest software developers. They also emphasize that the issue could become increasingly irrelevant in the future.

Among the unilateral steps that could be taken were there serious interests on the part of at least some of the major parties involved in achieving a reduction in the so-called software piracy but in the absence of any the policy measures for achieving such solution are:

(1) Adjustment by vendors of proprietary software of their prices to levels that are consistent with the income levels in each country or region. In fact, this could actually result in increased revenue for them due to the greater volume of authorized sales.

(2) Enforcement by national governments of existing antitrust laws and the creation of new ones where necessary in order to increase competition and thereby lower prices so that it is easier for users to purchase software from authorized sources. Ideally, it would be most effective to do this in the countries in which such software is developed. However, in the absence of the political will to do so in such countries, the coordinated enactment and enforcement of such laws in a number of user countries, even the lowest income ones, could still have quite an effect.

(3) A more honest approach by companies that are accusing users of so-called software piracy. This includes (a) stopping the exaggeration of the negative effects, (b) openly admitting and making at least token restitution for the vast amount of damage which has resulted from years of abusive monopoly practices and (c) avoiding the use of nonsensical terminology such as software piracy.

(4) Increased promotion of the use of free software. Because its license always requires that it be available at no monetary cost and encourage the study, modification, extension and redistribution of it, thus, by definition, there can be no such thing as piracy of free software. Indeed, the increased use of free software is likely to become the most effective solution in the long run as its use continues to proliferate as a consequence of successive improvements in its performance, of more people becoming aware of its benefits, and of governments and other organizations continuing to remove the various barriers to its widespread use.
Software piracies social and ethical implication is that with this, many jobs and billion of dollars can be lost with a single pirated CD. People must know that these illegal software damages the developers the owners and the cyber world. So let’s stop piracy because piracy is stealing and stealing is against the law.

Computer Ethics

1. Discuss how adherents of ethical egoism and altruism could analyze the following situation:
Case 1:
Roger plans to buy licensed software in the US using his royalties from the sales of his book on computer ethics and donate the software to her alma mater.
Ethical Egoism:
In Roger's ethical egoism he ought to do what is its own self interest which is to buy a licensed software using his own royalties and donate it to his alma mater.
Ethical Altruism:
But under his Ethical Altruism is it really his obligations to purchase this license software and donate it in order to benefit his Alma matter? But rather it his own self interest that he will donate a license software for his alma mater

Case 2:
Bamba debugged a secret code of the NBI that allowed her to access all computer systems if the agency. She plans to sabotage the whole system as a form of revenge to she considered to be the NBI's violation of human rights

Ethical Egoism:
The Ethical Egoism of Bamba that is to debug a secret code of the NBI to access all the computers as the form of her revenge to the organization is her interest in doing so but it is also unethical to debug a secret code and sabotage an organization by the form of revenge.
Ethical Altruism:
Bamba has her moral obligation and has swear to the organizations ought that to serve the organization and as I believe that each individual employee understands the organizations vision mission goals and more importantly the core values to achieve the goal of the organization. Bamba's act to sabotage the NBI is unethical, immoral and unlawful to the society’s standards that would not help, serve and benefit others.

Case 3:
Marjo wants to create a computer virus that would affect only laptop operations.

Ethical Egoism:
Marjo ethical egoism which deals with creating computer virus that would affect only laptop operation is only his self interest in doing so maybe so that he will be acknowledge, to gain popularity or maybe just for fun.

Ethical Altruism:
Under Marjo's ethical altruism will Marjo's computer virus able to help, serve, and benefit others and is it his moral obligation to produce this computer virus? This action of creating a computer virus that would only affect or damage only laptop operations is harmful to people who uses laptops and rather will not help them or even they will not get benefits and just causes
damages to their hardware.

2. Which among the finalist theory appeals to you most (John Stuarts, Mill's, Utilitarianism, Immanuel Kants, Categorical Imperatives and Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics)

All finalist theorist are really interesting to me, Utilitarianism which deals with the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by its usefulness in bringing about the most happiness, Categorical Imperatives dealing with reasoning or rationalizing and Nicomachean Ethics which deals with virtues. But the only one that appeals to me most is that by Immanuel Kants Categorical Imperatives or moral law, "Act as if the maxim from which you act were to become through your will a universal law.". This law has its source in the autonomy of a rational being, and it is the formula for an absolutely good will. We human beings have the ability to rationalize and to know what are good or bad that would centers our moral laws.

3. Which among the theories seems to predominate in the world of computing as you know it.

For me among those finalist theories the most dominant of all when it comes to the world of computing is the by John Stuarts Utilitarianism because whether we know it is good or bad as long as we are happy of what we are doing. We all know that pornography in an illegal term is bad but more people "hooked" to it for their sexual pleasure, or even creating viruses, web hacking, or even software piracy these actions as we all know are bad but still many people does it because they are happy about it, the trends today whether we like it or not is most people like to be happy or rather than to follow the society moral laws and even his or her virtue.