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Ethical Issues with the Software Piracy Issue

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Ethical Issues with the Software Piracy Issue
Computer ethics deals with moral responsibility of what is wrong and right. Based on ―Importance of Computer Ethics and Software Piracy‖ article, software piracy is copying, distributing, and using software or games without paying. Software Piracy is a form of ethical issue that is hard to solve in society, especially among students of Faculty of Computer Science University of Indonesia. Based on writer observation in campus, students are still using pirated software, including using, duplicating, and distributing it to their friends. This attitude of course violates developer’s intellectual property. The article also mentions about intellectual property and penalties for those who violate computer ethics laws. Intellectual property is including images, patents, procedures, videos, audios, and drawings. For those who violate someone’s intellectual property will be given penalties—paying hefty fines to extensive prison time. But even so, it seems the penalties are still blurring for students.
Nowadays, information technology has widely grow and used by human. Computer technology, both hardware and software has been widely approved as an intellectual property. The fast growth of technology innovation, especially software, is open for public and can be easily accessed by public via internet. It is the same for software piracy. Serial key, hack-version, and more other ways are easily accessible and widely available.
Based on ―Ethical Issues in Software Piracy‖ article, someone should have a moral responsibility in using software. So, from internal-self of user should be aware of someone’s intellectual property. W. D. Ross stated ―The Right and the Good‖ as our guideline to prove our moral responsibility toward software and/or its developer. Software piracy would cause loss of revenue for the developer. Thus, it will decrease developer’s motivation in designing new software.
Impacts of software piracy explained above are mostly occurred because of human and economic



References: 1. K. W. Miller, Moral Responsibility for Computing Artifacts: ―The Rules‖. Illinois: IEEE, 2011. 2. Unknown. (2011). Kode Etik Mahasiswa Fakultas Ilmu Komputer Universitas Indonesia [Online]. Available: http://scele.cs.ui.ac.id/file.php/1434/Kode_Etik_Mhsw_Fasilkom.pdf 3. Thurlow, Max. Ethical Issue in Software Piracy [Online]. Available: http://www.ehow.com/list_6669954_ethical-issues-software-piracy.html 4. Boone, Kevin, Importance of Computer Ethics and Software Piracy [Online]. Available: http://www.ehow.com/facts_5766300_importance-computer-ethics-software-piracy.html

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