Ethics on the Internet
In today's society, there are many ethical issues on the Internet. Some of the biggest issues and concerns seem to be hacking and viruses, copyright infringements, spam, privacy, and cyberporn. Internet ethical issues affect a wide variety of individuals and almost all people today are affected in some kind of a way. Until recently, most computer users had not been very concerned with questions of ethics and may not have been aware of something being seen as an ethical issue, but this depends on every individual's position. However, today there are many concerns about these issues and some organizations are trying to get laws approved protecting individuals in today's society.
Copyright infringements now are an extremely large issue. Illegal distribution of software over the Internet damages the software market, causes prices to go up, slows new software development, and hurts job creation in software development. It is currently reported that 40% of the world's software is pirated.
Computer software is one of the most valuable technologies in our society. Since software is so valuable and because computers make it easy to create an exact copy of a program in seconds, software piracy is widespread. From individual computer users to professionals who deal wholesale in stolen software, piracy exists in homes, schools and businesses. Software pirates not only steal from the companies that make the software, but it causes the company to have less money towards their research and development of new software and it ends up hurting all users.
The software piracy industry is growing due to the number of PCs and Internet users growing. The Business Software Alliance believes that new techn...
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Ethics and Electronic Information in the Twenty-First Century, by Lester J. Pourciau (Editor), G. T. Mendina
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The American Heritage Dictionary defines piracy as “the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted or patented material.” It is a problem that affects companies all over the world. Piracy of software, movies, and music is commonplace in China. China has the second worst piracy rate in the world; about 92 percent of the software in China is pirated (Williams 2004). Various companies and governments have attempted to combat piracy, but they had not seen much success until recent years. Combating piracy is a difficult task, especially in a country that has a history of not enforcing intellectual property laws.
Though it is often overlooked today in favor of its counterpart digital music protection, software content protection is an extremely serious issue, and many contend that it has the potential to stunt the growth of technology if it is mishandled. The debate concerns software piracy (often simply using a program you didn’t actually pay for), and the proper legal protection that should apply to such software programs. Due to space constraints, I intend to confine our discussion here to an overview of the software patent and copyright issues in the United States and the UK – two of the world’s most advanced countries with widespread software development and use, and therefore great potential for misuse. And as no treatment of this issue can be complete without a look at its ethical ramifications, I will finally propose a solution to the software protection problem, and justify it with ethical as well as pragmatic motivations.
The world has not been the same since the case of David LaMacchia, a former MIT student who was indicted in 1994 for violating wire-fraud statutes, or, in other words, for software piracy. LaMacchia made two websites entitled “Cynosure” and “Cynosure 2,” that were connected to the internet from November 21, 1993 to January 5, 1994. On his websites LaMacchia essentially gave internet users access to MIT’s Athena workstations, which were comprised of many different programs and utilities used at the university. The charges first brought against LaMacchia were for violation of wire-fraud laws, but the case was thrown out because LaMacchia had not profited personally from the scheme. However, the case has proven to be a landmark, the first shot in the war against internet piracy that we know well today.
"Software piracy is the unauthorized duplication, distribution or use of computer software". Five main types of software piracy exist: publisher patent and copyright infringement, industrial piracy, corporate piracy, reseller piracy, and home piracy. Software piracy is a large global issue, which has become a more pressing issue due to a number of reasons: software is now easier to distribute on a global scale due to global access to the internet; culturally, people have not been taught that copying software is like stealing; a physical component does not need to be manufactured; and finally individuals state that they cannot afford the high cost of software and state that they would not use the pirated software if they had to pay for it.1
In conclusion, following ethics in file sharing is very important not only for individuals but to protect the copy right of the individual and the community. Each individual decision and act to stop breaking the copy right can make deference in community. Modern methods such as peer-to-peer solution make everything available online for the internet users. However, individuals should not use peer-to-peer to download illegal files such as unlicensed software. Solutions to this problem are simply educate individuals about risks of downloading unethical files as well as inform developers about how to protect their software. Every individual act in sharing and downloading unethical files over the internet can have a bad influence on the whole community.
If there is one topic that will spark debate amongst PC gamers today, it is piracy and the impact its economic impact on the gaming industry. Nearly everyone has an opinion on the topic, ranging from complete acceptance and support for piracy to utter disgust and disapproval. In the past years, since the SOPA and PIPA legislation was proposed to Congress, this issue has reached its critical mass, with a different PC game developer blaming piracy as a present danger to the industry every other day. As someone who has played games for almost my entire life, I must confess I am rather upset when reading the innumerable discussions and articles on piracy.
Abstract: This paper examines the use of Internet technologies (specifically SafeWeb.com) to counteract invasions of personal privacy and censorship. The paper begins by exploring the methods by which governments, corporations, and commercial agents invade personal privacy. It also discusses Internet censorship on the corporate and governmental levels. It then proceeds to discuss SafeWeb.com, a technology that allows Internet users to surf the Web privately and view censored content. The paper finishes by exploring some of the ethical issues raised by Internet privacy and censorship in specific relation to SafeWeb, concluding that the application of SafeWeb in circumventing the authority of governments and corporations is inherently unethical.
In every society we live, we have to follow the rule of that place. The Internet is growing, growing in the number of users and growing in public perception. The Internet is the new American frontier due to the new technologies is radically transforming almost every aspect of how we communicate and with whom, as well as just about any dimension of our lives. Most Internet users are convinced of its general utility and positive benefits. However behind it, the Internet, as well as its technological offspring’s the World Wide Web has been compared to the Wild West, because no one owns the network and there is no law and regulations. In consequence of the growth of the Internet, there have been increasing calls for its regulation from many sides.
Physical piracy-the copying and illegal sale of hard-copy CDs, videotapes, and DVDs-costs the music industry over $4 billion a year worldwide and the movie industry more than $3.5 billion. These numbers do not factor in the growing (and difficult to measure) problem of Internet piracy, in which music and movies are transferred to digital format and copies are made of the resulting computer file. Journalist Charles C. Mann explains why Internet piracy has the potential to be vastly more damaging to copyright industr...
Beaver, William. (2000). The Dilemma of Internet Pornography. Business and Society Review: Journal of the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College, 105(3), 373-382.
It's important to understand the different software piracy channels, not just to comply with the law but also to protect against bigger economic problems like lost revenue...and lost jobs.
... I am suggesting here are large. They concern such basic issues as the so-called digital divide that should not be understood primarily as a question of how people can get access to the internet but on how the digital casting of Beings affects, for better or for worse, our everyday lives and cultures (Scheule et al. 2004). Instead of viewing human existence as part of the global digital network, we should twist this perspective. "Localizing the Internet. Ethical Issues in Intercultural Perspective" was the title of an international symposium organized by the International Center for Information Ethics (ICIE) and sponsored by VolkswagenStiftung (Capurro et al. 2006).
Internet is growing constantly and is becoming a hard to regulate the entire world networks and every country has it's own laws, policies, and ethical values. Until this day we have come up with technical standards for the entire Internet but there are not yet ethical standards that rule the World Wide Web. Governments of the world should nurture laws and standards for ethical issues for this huge network. Also we need to be aware of Internet threats and learn how to protect our privacy when using the Internet.
The Internet has received a great deal of attention in the media lately due to its tremendous
1 Bowyer, Kevin W. "Ethics and Computing: Living Responsibly in a Computerized World." Second Edition. IEEE Press: New York, 2001; pages