Ethical & Social Issues

Required Resources:

• Laudon & Laudon, Chapter 5
• The Corporation: Monstrous Obligations (Quicktime [large 29 Mb; small 5 Mb])
• The Economist: Fighting the Worms of mass Destruction - http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2246018
• ALA: Digital Rights Management and Libraries http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/copyrightb/digitalrights/digitalrightsmanagement.htm

Outline:

1. Activity/Discussion: Security
2. Individual and corporate ethics (discussion)
3. Public Domain and Copyright (discussion)

Given the public and controversial nature of the subject matter explored in this week's readings, the emphasis will be on discussion--on discussing the relevant issues online.

Discussion: Security The Economist article discusses a wide range of security issues that still plague Internet users today. It indicates that Microsoft's market dominance (or monopoly) is largely to blame, and highlights the fact that Microsoft has resisted attempts to accept liability for these issues. (It appears that, by all accounts, Microsoft has reached a settlement with the plaintiff in the California case mentioned in The Economist article, and that this liability issue is currently not a major threat for this corporation.) Do you agree or disagree with the conclusions in the Economist article about Microsoft? In the light of what Laudon and Laudon say about liability (pp. 169-170), what should the liability of Microsoft be in this matter? Is selling insecure software comparable to cutting an Internet service cable? How might it differ?

 

Discussion: Individuals and Organizations. The Laudon and Laudon text discusses ethics --and related concepts like responsibility and accountability-- in terms of the individual: "Ethics is a concern of humans who have freedom of choice. Ethics is about individual choice." However, the segment from the documentary "The Corporation" suggests that actions undertaken by corporations versus those done by individuals per se are quite different in nature. Thinking of the characteristics of organizations and bureaucracies first identified by Max Weber (provided in week 1, and listed below), how can this difference be understood? What does it mean for ethics and ethical issues? (Optional Reading: The Corporation -Detailed Synopsis http://www.thecorporation. com/index.php?page_id=2) Weber's Ideal-Typical characteristics of the Bureaucratic Organization: Hierarchy of authority Impersonality Written rules of conduct (operating procedures) Promotion based on achievement (technical qualifications for positions; meritocracy) Specialized division of labor Efficiency (maximal organizational efficiency)

Quicktime: [large 29 Mb; small 5 Mb]

Public Domain (From; Wikipedia, Public Domain NOTE: This item betrays a strong bias in favour of one side in the debate over copyright.)

The role in society

Creative Commons, an organization that promotes use of the public domain and copyleft licensing schemes, writes:

"Public access to literature, art, music, and film is essential to preserving and building on our cultural heritage. Many of the most important works of American culture have drawn upon the creative potential of the public domain. Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is a classic example of a film that did not enjoy popular success until it entered the public domain. Other icons such as Snow White, Pinocchio, Santa Claus and Uncle Sam grew out of public domain figures." (creativecommons.org)

Public domain and the Internet

The term "public domain" is often poorly understood and has created significant legal controversy. Historically, most parties attempting to address public domain issues fell into two camps:

1. Businesses and organizations who could devote staff to resolving legal conflicts through negotiation and the court system.
2. Individuals and organizations using materials covered by the fair use doctrine, reducing the need for substantial governmental or corporate resources to track down individual offenders.

With the advent of the Internet, however, it became possible for anybody with access to this worldwide network to "post" copyrighted or otherwise-licensed materials freely and easily. This aggravated an already established but false belief that, if something is available through a free source, it must be public domain. Once such material was available on the net, it could be perfectly copied among thousands or even millions of computers very quickly and essentially without cost.

These factors have reinforced the false notion that "freely obtained" means "public domain". One could argue that the Internet is a publicly-available domain, not licensed or controlled by any individual, company, or government; therefore, everything on the Internet is public domain. This specious argument ignores the fact that licensing rights are not dependent on the means of distribution or consumer acquisition. (If someone gives you stolen merchandise, it is still stolen, even if you weren't aware of it.) Chasing down copyright violations based on the erroneous idea that "information is free" has become a primary focus of industries whose financial structure is based on their control of the distribution of such media. Though this is legally correct, public support for these companies' efforts is significantly undermined by the belief that they are receiving their "just deserts" for decades of price-gouging for licensed media. Ironically, this puts many creators of such work, like musicians and authors, on both sides of the issue, since they have frequently fought media distributors over inadequate compensation for their work, but depend on distributors' revenues for that compensation.

Another complication is that publishing exclusively on the Internet has become extremely popular. According to U.S. law, at least, an author's original works are covered by copyright, even without a formal notice incorporated into the work. But such laws were passed at a time when the focus was on materials that could not be as easily and cheaply reproduced as digital media, nor did they comprehend the ultimate impossibility of determining which set of electronic bits is original. Technically, any Internet posting (such as blogs or emails) could be considered copyrighted material unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Many people are using the Internet to contribute to the public domain, or make works in the public domain more accessible to more people. For example, Project Gutenberg is coordinating the efforts of people who transcribe works in the public domain into electronic form.

Discussion: Public Domain & Copyright The Laudon and Laudon text considers a number of important issues regarding intellectual property that are raised by Internet technologies. However, the the texts tend to present these issues from the perspective of those who would like to control the use of intellectual properties. Libraries, especially public and academic libraries frequently have as one of their goals the support of access to intellectual property --especially where education, research and the public good is concerned. This is indicated in the ALA document on digital rights. Does this involve a conflict of interests between these institutions? How have you observed libraries (and similar institutions) acting in this regard? How have private sector interests acted?