Business Ethics

Piracy an Ethical Issue ! Impact on Business

Abdul Samad HamailMubashirKamranMurtaza

Computer Ethics

Ethics is the branch of philosophy concerned with what’s right and what’s wrong.

Computer ethics deals with moral dilemmas and the ethical principles for computer professionals.

DO You Know Piracy refers to the unauthorized duplication of

copyrighted content

Do you Know We all Commit Crime

Copying MP3Sharing Movies

Installing Software Buying Books

Buying Art And Crafts

Downloading MP3 and Keeping more than 24 hours is crimeEvery 3rd CD and 2nd DVD is Pirated

US annual Loss 1.9Billion USD

Also called Cinema piracy

Video Piracy causing 3 biggest Paying Crimes Causing 2.2 billion UDS loss Hollywood

1.2 billion USD Loss Bollywood

Book Piracy

Deliberate infringement of copyright on intellectual property and an absolute disregard for ownership or authorship of literary works

ORUsing another person’s opinion, ideas or works as if they were one’s own and without making any attempt at acknowledging their true source

Trade Loss of US Book Industry Due to Piracy in PakistanYear Loss

(in millions of US dollars)

1995 30

1996 30

1997 30

1998 40

1999 42

2000 45

2001 44

2002 44

2003 44

2004 52

Causes of Book PiracyCauses Percent

High price of original edition thus low sale 80

High rate of profit 33

Non-availability of original editions 29

Inclusion of foreign books in syllabus 28

Easy and affordable reproduction technology 24

Inappropriate law for copyright violation 20

Legal action is complicated and time consuming 20

No supervisory mechanism to enforce copyright law 18

Difficulties in obtaining copyrights from foreign publisher/author 14

Difficulties in importing foreign book 12

Lack of communication between publishers/booksellers and the Copyright Office

6

• Pakistan has a strict and clear copyright law but its implementation is not easy

• Pakistan government’s failure to protect copyright causes a damage to its dignity in international community

• Readers are not well aware of the benefits of copyright

• Copyright law must be enforced, but• First, provide foreign books to local readers at low

price because

THIS IS THE MAOJR CAUSE OF BOOK PIRACY

© 2005 Prentice-Hall, Inc Slide 12

Software and Copyrights• Public domain software can be copied, sold, and

modified.• Shareware is copyrighted software that can be used

without a license for a specified time. • Trial versions can be copied. • When the evaluation period ends, a registration fee is paid for

continued use of the software.

• Commercial software is copyrighted.• You must purchase the software to use it.• Organizations purchase a site license to use the software on

all of their computers.

Software Piracy

• Selling software that contains all or part of a commercial software program

• Using shareware beyond its evaluation period• Violating the terms of a software license• Making copies of site-licensed programs for personal

use• Giving or selling commercial software to others

Software PiracySoftware Pirate Gets 7 Years in Prison

Main scenarioA California man, Nathan Peterson,has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison and ordered to pay $5.4 million in restitution for selling pirated software online.

Nat

han

Pete

rson

1. Pleaded guilty

2. Sold pirated software through his website.

3. Two charges of criminal copyright infringement.

Companies affected Nathan Peterson was copying and selling software from:

• Adobe

• Macromedia

• Symantec

• Autodesk

Companies affected

Estimated losses to the software companies range from:

$7million to $20 million

Ethical and Social Issues• People buy pirated software without realizing what they're doing

• Consumers are used to buying products, such a books and CDs that can be shared with friends and family.

• But if you buy Windows, it doesn't belong to you, it's Microsoft's. They're just letting you use it.

• There are many ways consumers can be fooled.

• Pricing that is far below the manufacturer's price can be a tip-off, but many people think they are getting a bargain, not a pirated program.

Social and Ethical Issues

Industry

PatentLaw Copyright

Laws

Contract Law

Intellectual property

Software piracySoftware piracy

Problems• Software companies deal with extremely high losses

due to software piracy.

• Pirates gain a lot of money from their software piracy.

• People are not aware that what they• are doing is a crime.

Solutions

Ethical Legal Social Market

Protection Apply laws Education Detection