Copying Morality? Essay

package plagiarism and illegal file sh bes is becoming a bigger issue in modern twenty-four hours ships comp some(prenominal), more(prenominal) compar open(p)ly with the youth of society. All computers now come with burn-w be technologies in which the user can take a product and create copies of that softwargon. Originally, this litigate was created in order to entrust methods of backing up a souls computer files, in case of hardw be crashing and system reboots. However, the postal service has changed. batch are now able to duplicate any oddball of media file (DVDs, CDs, operation systems, etc) and give out these products, muster out of charge.Do you like that CD that your friend bought the other day? Ask him to burn you a feign, then you can lead it too. Did your latest version of Microsoft Windows crash on you and you take ont have the recovery discs? No problem. Get a friend to burn you a replica of their recovery discs. And whats the better(p) matter to th e highest degree these trans fills? You dont have to cede for anything Broke college students rejoice In Bernard Gerts essay, Is it Moral to Make Copies of Software for my Friends? ,the ethics of this trend are discussed. What are the ethical guidelines when it comes to computers? Is it pleasing to copy software product package?Gerts conclusion is that it is non morally acceptable to copy software, no matter who the software is for and regardless if it is free of charge. It is an illegal action, as in that location are truths against much(prenominal) activity, and on that pointfore it is unacceptable to partake in such action. Although still thinkable to perform while still illegal, this doesnt recall that it is acceptable. A legal philosophy can non be broken just because somebody has the means of doing so. Gert first explains the ethics of giveing the right. He states that mavin cannot bourn the subject matter of the law to a particular law one dislikes. He uses th e example of smoking by minors to back up this argument. The law is that you must be 18 social classs old in order to corrupt cigarettes. However, minors cannot just go out and buy cigarettes and smoke because they dislike the law. Its still a law not liking the law isnt a justifiable reason to refine and rupture it. The except time that it is acceptable to break a law is in the speckle in which the law is inequitable. If a law is unjust and has a negative effect on society, then it should not be a law in the first place, thus do it acceptable if the law is to be broken because eventually, this impart cause the law to be over subroutineed.However, current software copy laws are not unjust, and if they are to be considered unjust, in that location is no clear and valid reason of why they are unjust. Copying laws are not morally unacceptable, making it unacceptable to break these laws. Gerts compares this issue to speed limits. Speed limits are the accepted law of whatsoeve r state they are set in. These speed limits are not nuisance society and are morally acceptable within the community. Because of this, it is looked down upon when a driver breaks the speed limit, becoming so unacceptable that legal action can take place.Speed limits are not suggestions, they are laws. These laws are in no violation of righteousness and therefore they must be followed. Gert also believes that it is not acceptable to break a law in the event that one thinks that some other law would be better. If society allows violation of the current law due to the fact the society is in esteem of other laws that are not passed, then it becomes acceptable for everyone to break every law. If everyone has this mentality, then law becomes obsolete. Why even bother having any laws if everyone feels that they can break them because they dont agree with them?Gert believes that this mentality leave behind lead into anarchy. As for software laws, Gert believes that because these laws ar e not unjust and are not causing any harm, it is not morally acceptable for anyone to be good luck the law. He claims that he does not know enough about the current laws to admit that there may be other more suitable and better laws that for this issue. However, that does not mean that software copying shouldnt be illegal or have penalties. Gert states that illegally copying software cannot be described solely based on the morally relevant issues, as it brings in ones biases with regard to software.People may only jaw it as doing a favor for a friend when they copy software. How can an act with good intentions possibly be immoral? According to Gert, it doesnt matter of what the intentions were motives dont watch over the morality of an action. In conclusion, for these reasons, Gert determines that copying software is not morally acceptable. II. evaluation According to Gert, it doesnt matter of what the intentions were motives dont determine the morality of an action. Here, I fin d myself agreeing with Gert. Just because you have good intentions, it doesnt mean that its acceptable to violate the law.Hitler had good intentions, didnt he? He wanted to cleanse his country and make his country better for the quite a little he deemed valuable. Sure, he killed millions of pile, hardly the good intent was there, right? Wrong. His intentions do not justify anything that he did. A someone could justify ruin software by saying that he is doing it to help out his friend, nevertheless his good intentions mean nothing. He still did something that was against the law, and therefore it is vilify. The second and destruction thing that I agree with Gert about is that it normally should not be acceptable for a person to break the law.The only time it is tolerable is when the law is an unjust one that brings more harm than good to society. In Americas early years, did the settlers not eventually find big businessman Georges rule to be unjust? Did we not find his law s and policies unendurable? Did we not oppose them and fight them? America was born by breaking the law And this is acceptable Why? Because it was against in justice. The only time a law can be broken is when it is unjust. We, as Americans, cannot argue with this. However, are piracy laws unjust? Gert certainly doesnt think so. Im not sure if I agree with him.A helplessness that Gert has is that he admits that he does not know much about the piracy laws. He knows that there are laws making copying illegal, however, he does not explain them because he does not know enough about them to do so. It makes me wonder if you dont know everything about your subject, then why are making such an effort to persaude me to believe your opinion? He loses credibility and this hurts him. If you are going to argue a viewpoint, I would prefer that the person pleading his case knows a lot about the subject matter. To be honest, I dont think Gert knows a lot about the situation.He rarely actually tal ks about the core subject copying software. Instead, he talks about the morality of breaking the law in general. He just happens to throw software piracy in there to add another example of the morality of breaking the law. This severely hurts his dissertation and essay in general. Another weakness in this paper is the foxy slope argument that he makes about breaking laws in favor for other laws. He claims that this willing lead to anarachy. If plenty dont want to obey the law because they think some other law would be better, how will this lead to anarchy?Couldnt it be possible that it will just lead to the replacement of laws? If there is such replacement, how will it lead to chaotic anarachy? He does not explain why such a process will lead to anarachy he just states that it will lead to it. Not only is his argument breaked, there is a flaw within the flaw. He cant even explain his premature reasoning. But then again, maybe that is the whole point of illogical reasoning ther e is no logical reasoning A final weakness that I found a couple of times in Gerts essay is that he uses some faulty analogies.He compares software laws to stop number laws and drinking laws, among other breif examples. He uses these examples in his arguments about the morality of breaking the law. If one does not agree with the speed limits, he is not make to break them simply because he does not like them. If an 18 year old wants to drink when the legal drinking age is 21, he cannot do so just because he doesnt agree with the law. Thus, if a person wants to copy a CD for their friend and it is illegal, he cannot do so. I dont believe that piracy laws fall in the same(p) field as speed limits and underage drinking.I think those problems conflict society much more than a burned copy of bad Oyster Cults Dont Fear the reaper. These are just different situations and they shouldnt be compared on the same level. So it is morally acceptable to copy software for my friends? I persona lly believe so for a couple of reasons. I am dishonored of illegally copying music and movies, and I see nothing wrong with anything that I have done. Im a criminal justice major and I insure the piracy laws. I still see nothing wrong with it. If burning a CD or a DVD is so morally wrong, then why do stores permit the means of doing so?Stores make do burnable discs in which you can copy anything onto them. How can anyone be expected NOT to burn software or a CD? These discs arent illegal, just now the act of copying is illegal. Yes, I understand that the original purpose of these rewritable CDs and DVDs were to be storage devices for personal work, but the times have changes as the technology has evolved. Do not provide the means of a villainy if you do not want the crime to happen. Im positive that the main reason why populate burn software is because of the money involved. Downloading something is free.If I have a free option, then why should I bother purchase something? I f I only like one song on a CD, why should I have to shell out twenty-five dollars to buy the whole thing? CDs only cost companies ten cents to burn, and an additional two dollars for the packaging. I understand that there are labor fees to be paid as well, but why does the media industry have to charge their consumers, their lifeblood, these ridiculous prices? My laptop computer crashed recently. Nowadays, laptops are being sold with the software already installed onto the hard drive. This has added a inscrutable cost to the overall cost of the laptop.Along with this, no discs are provided. Youre paying for software that you have no legal copy for. When your laptop crashes, you no longer have the software. So when my laptop crashed, resulting in me buying a new hard drive, what did the technical support people sort out me to do? They told me that I had to buy the operating system separately. It was an annoyance to do so, but it was an option. Do you know how much Windows Vista g oes for? Two coulomb fifty dollars. Well, there goes that option for this poor college student. My solution to my problem?I found a friend with Vista and I got him to copy the software for me. If the legal copy did not cost so much, I would have purchased it. I think thats the root problem of this issue. If companies didnt sell their software at such an absurd price, more people would turn away from illegal means of obtaining said software and actually choose it legally. I see no problem with downloading software because of this key reason. guilty copying and downloading of software, music, and movies is just something that isnt possible to monitor. There are millions of people all over the world doing this.How can officials possible prosecute these people? How can they possibly track them down? Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as email tracking and there is no such thing as download tracking. There is no such technology to know exactly what illegal site someone has been on and downloaded something from. If you take my mp3 player, there is no way that you would be able to tell which songs I purchased and which ones I have illegally downloaded. It is the same situation if you took a look on my computer. Which files were obtained illegally? Youll never know.