Ethical Dilemma Chapter 4
Question 1: Consider a case of Alice who was writing a textbook, She wishes to include in her book material from various sources – particularly a few key diagrams that have previously been. In the case of old books, should publishers require significant fees to be paid to them if material from one of their books is reproduced elsewhere? To what extent should this be underpinned by consideration of fair use? Is it reasonable for publishers to require significant amounts of money to be paid in relation to the production of materials from an old book – particularly when they know that this will not be passed on to the author, or their estate? To what extent is it appropriate to simply make modifications of diagram, and therefore avoid the payments of permission fees? By way of simple example, consider Figure 4.3. Let us suppose that this is ‘edited’ by Alice and reproduced in her book in the form illustrated in Figure 4.4. To what extent (if any) is Alice guilty of plagiarism? One point to note by not paying permission fees, it follows that the author will not acknowledge the original source of the diagram – thus, the original creative person does not receive any credit.
To what extent do such considerations apply to software? For example, is it permissible to take another person’s code, make limited modifications to it, and represent it as one’s own work?
Group's Response:
In the case of old books, should publishers require significant fees to be paid to them if material from one of their books is reproduced elsewhere?
On the case of Alice, it was indicated that the old book that she tried to use as a reference from her and copy a diagram from it, the copyright for the book hasn't expired. In that case, therefore, publishers may require significant fees if a certain material from their book is published elsewhere.
"One of the rights accorded to the owner of copyright is the right to reproduce or to authorize others to reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords."
On the quoted statement above, the publisher can reproduce or authorize others to reproduce the work.
To what extent should this be underpinned by consideration of fair use?
Ethical Dilemma Chapter 5
Question 2: Let us suppose that you are employed by a company that develops websites for clients. One day your boss presents you with a new project. In brief, your company has obtained a contract from a law enforcement agency to develop several websites. These are to act in line with the ‘honeypot’ scenario mentioned in the previous chapter. The project being undertaken by the law enforcement agency is to gather information in relation to individuals who may be ‘interested’ in extreme forms of violence. By developing this website you will be assisting the law enforcement agencies who will gather material in relation to people who peruse the site.
What is your ethical position?
Our ethical position in this scenario is to follow your boss since you are working with him, because as a programmer or an employee you need to do what your boss wants or need to do your job with the company you are employed and to satisfy what your client’s wants. In addition for this situation, we think that this is not an unethical act if you do the websites since your client is from a law enforcement agency, and this agency wants to make a tools to prevent more computer crimes and to track cyber criminals, so in this case, as a programmer you are not just doing an ethical act in terms of doing your job where you are employed but you also do an ethical act to the law enforcement agency and able to help them to track those who are doing computer crimes with the use of that websites.
Do you think this is an appropriate agenda in terms of invisibly policing the internet?
Yes, because through this website, it could prevent more computer crimes and violence such as gathering and unauthorized access of personal information from the internet.
Since your boss has presented you with this brief, in the case that you do not agree with the ramifications of policing the internet in this way, do you have any political alternative but to undertake the work? (Here we assume that your boss is insistent that the work should be carried out by you.) What – if any – real objections do you have?
Since the project website is dealing on gathering individuals information’s who extremely performed violations over the internet in particular with the computer crimes, it maybe become a problem in the future for the developer and the company if anyone would complaint against this form of policing over the internet by gathering information of individuals without knowledge of that individual. In this case this act could be blamed not only to the law enforcement agency but also to the company and the developer. For this situation it is good also to make sure that by doing this project there would be a protection for the company and the developers for any consequences in the future if ever this project will be used. But in terms of the privacy of the users in using the internet this project could be unethical, the project should limit their access to the user’s personal information and should also protect any information they gathered from the users in that case it could prevent violating individuals privacy, however, as we said ,the company always make sure that their clients always satisfies with the output of the project, and always the clients have the right for any modification on the project.
Do you feel this is encroaching upon the liberty of the individual?
Yes, since every individual has their liberty on what they want to do, however if this websites can prevent cyber criminals to make more crimes in the future such as unauthorized use of your personal information and etc., then it is good to support this project so that you are surely secured from any of the computer crimes over the internet.
Are your views influenced by the nature of the content of the website? For example, would your views be any different if the website related directly to terrorism or other forms of political extremism?
Probably yes, as an ethical act, since the content of the project is for the good of every one of us who use the internet which computer crimes are increasing. However as professional programmers, your goal in job is to make your client satisfied to your work, they have the rights on the project they want.
To what extent do you think that the internet is currently being policed – not only in terms of monitoring those who enter particular websites or who enter contentious chat room areas or the like?
Our views about this , is that the internet is not really policed however there are some laws created against the computer crimes in the internet, such as the UK Misuse Act 1990 and US Computer Fraud and Abuse act, which deals with a punishment regarding to the misuse and abuse using computer and internet. In addition internet is wide and in that case it is hard to policed and control all who make computer crimes over the internet.
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