Business Ethics on Software Piracy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Business Ethics on Software Piracy - Essay Example Piracy is very difficult to stop, and software companies are at a loss as to how to stop major offenders. Although new measures are continually being tested, so far these have proven either cumbersome to paying clients or ineffective altogether. According to Mitchell (2003), "the illegal copying of software is considered by some international business experts to provide an interesting glimpse into the overall maturity of the business ethics of a region" (p.136). Historically, this inference holds true particularly in relation to the socio-economic development of a region. While locations such as Vietnam and China had a near-frivolous 100% piracy rate, in North America it was a much more acceptable 25%. Given these facts, it is illustrated that the better developed a country, the less prone it would be to software piracy. Perhaps it may be connected to the fact that the protected delivery of technology is so easily sidetracked that so many people are tempted to get a free copy. After all, who would say no to a freebie right In today's rapidly changing information highway, software is so readily accessible that anyone can do it. A few clicks on Google and one would be on his merry way. For the heavier protected software from the bigger companies, a more tech-savvy individual could source out illicit versions from numerous hacker websites which have proliferated the Internet. Actually some computer software companies have given up on curtailing piracy and instead utilize a concept called "shareware", where software is distributed for free but consumers are enjoined to make a small "donation" in good faith. As more and more users are switching to these free downloads, the situation is slowly becoming a serious business ethics issue that is both awkward and tricky to address. Existing piracy laws are lackadaisical at best, and only target users on a large scale. But for the small business, the prospect of saving a couple thousand dollars for relevant office software is quite appealing. - more so if the likelihood of getting caught is next to nil. Given the relative ease that one can download illicit software online, the morality and ethics of the matter comes into the forefront. Armed with the fact that some full-scale business in such countries such as the Philippines and Vietnam run completely on pirated software (Mitchell, 152), how does one exactly regulate this when officials in these countries turn a blind eye, and piracy is slowly becoming an accepted part of the culture Perhaps these Southeast Asian countries should follow the lead of the United States, who has been at the short end of the stick of the entire piracy industry. As mentioned earlier, the country has the lowest piracy rate and yet is the hardest hit. Is this short of saying that the level of business ethics and compliance is miles away compared to developing countries Can it be argued that what we are seeing is an illustration of stringent ethics being practiced as a whole from a cultural perspective, and that other locales simply lag behind and do not give much importance to it In the U.S., an April 2001 survey showed that 82 percent of corporations monitored employee communication, 82 percent had a formal written policy on email usage and 77 percent had one on Internet use ( Mitchell, 137). These same companies cite legal liability as the top reason, but recognized that banning personal