Software Ethics :: Software Technology Computers Essays

Software Ethics Cases Studies of Patent and Copyright Failures Copyrights and patents are used to protect a certain expressions of ideas and processes. These laws are intended to protect the inventor(s). But how useful are they? What is the computer industries’ track record in protecting inventions? What are we doing discussing ethics anyway? This paper will present a series of case studies which will illustrate how copyrights and patents have failed to protect inventors. After that discussion, the paper will examine whether there is an ethical view which could justify the failure of the patent and copyright laws. Intellectual property[1] laws have been around for some time. Inventors and creators had been and are still relying on copyright and patent laws to protect their inventions. The question naturally arises: why are they protecting their inventions and creations? There are a number of reasons. First of all, the majority of inventors feel that after spending sometimes years of hard work inventing a solution to a particular problem, they ought to get some benefit, recognition, or reward from society. In my opinion, these days many inventors are not from the upper class rich politicians as was the case up to about 100 years ago. Therefore, owning and trading intellectual property can be a means of survival for a person, an organization, and a country. More importantly, it allows an individual to negotiate with a large company. The laws can protect the small against the big. Intellectual property laws don’t always protect a single person. They can protect a company or many companies. A company can dedicate some employees to invent a certain component of a system and patent it or copyright it. This may protect the company in a variety of ways, one of which is that another company cannot hire away engineers and have them re-develop that same component. Another motivation for intellectual property laws is to showcase that if you work hard, invent something useful, or solve a significant problem, you will be rewarded. This gives incentive for others to be productive, contribute, and invent. There is a lot of controversy whether the concept of patents and copyrights are applicable to the digital age, by offering the protection of software. This paper argues that software is â€Å"different† and cannot be protected by copyrights or patents.