Module 4: The Ethics and Jurisprudence of Educational Technology: Ethical and Legal Foundations
On the ethics of piracy:
What are the implications of Kavita Philips’ “What is a Technological Author?” for rights– human rights, intellectual property rights, consumer rights, economic rights, digital technology user rights, etc.?
Philips’ (2005) article elaborates on the ethics of piracy from various perspectives. In general, there are two types of piracy : 1) good piracy – those that promote individual expression, authorship and creativity; and 2) bad piracy – those that disregard the ownership of the work made by others for profit.
So, what is a pirate? To me, any person who steals is a pirate. If a person who knows that downloading a movie from a torrent file is a way to not pay to rent a movie downloads and views a movie, then that person has performed an act of stealing. If you want to watch the movie, pay for it, or just don’t watch it.
In my opinion, our natural instinct is to think for ourselves. This is why younger students feel that copying the work of others’ is not cheating/stealing (as Steve has observed). The issue should thus be, “What are parents/educators (not) doing to help students realize the various forms of stealing other than not copying their peer’s work or taking candy from the vending machine?”
Since the advancement of technology is driven by humanistic desires/needs, perhaps the existence of Media itself and the collective mindset that Society has on individuals encourages piracy. In my opinion, only when a person is conscious about the effects of his/her actions (in both the real and digital worlds) on other human beings can acts such as piracy be dissuaded and discouraged.
Thus, when concerning the rights of people regarding piracy, I think only one question should be applied: How would you feel if someone copied your work without your permission?
Perhaps if we were able to be conscious of our inherent desire to think only of the benefits for oneself and be more considerate of how our actions might affect others, piracy would not be an issue.