Blog #5: Business Software Alliance (BSA) representative assumed
In this journal, given the two choices to assume the following positions: (1) a representative of the Business Software Alliance, and (2) a computer science student in a developing country, let us assume the former one.
Assuming this position, what is my position or say on ‘software piracy’?
Before we proceed, some terms are first defined:
BSA (Business Software Alliance) - now called The Software Alliance, is a trade group which aims to eliminate software piracy made by its members, including the major software makers such as Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Oracle, and others, including Microsoft who was the 1998 founder for this. This group runs many campaigns which has the primary objective of promoting legal use of copyrighted software and encouraging people to report to them who or what businesses use pirated software.
Software piracy - unauthorized usage, copying or distributing of a copyrighted software
BSA being defined above, is really an anti- when it comes to software piracy because piracy is already a form of crime, particularly a theft, as a software pirate does not have proper permission from the software owner to take or use the software. Also, software piracy have a very negative impact to the economy especially in the software industry, as it is really unfair for some customers who legally purchase a software compared to those who obtained it illegally.
Software piracy against ethics
Some people who agree software piracy may say that they pirate software because it is too expensive for people to buy so they pirate it and resell at a lower price. But earlier, we said that piracy is like a theft, so if we compared it to a stolen car and do the same thing, it is unethical and illegal, and its committing a crime. Next is that when it comes to developers, it is not easy developing a software product as it requires a lot of time and effort, and as for the finished product they deserved to be compensated for their work by purchasing that product legally rather than just pirating it for free which is really unfair to their side.
Software piracy causes less development in the economy
In software industry, when it comes to research and product’s further development, less money will be invested because piracy decreases profits that provides investment, which in turn results to decrease in sales where customers face higher prices to gain the profits lost from piracy. Also, developers lose their motivation and determination to give their best especially in enhancing the software.
Software piracy goes against our moral rights
We were thought since we were young that stealing is wrong, it’s one of the moral lessons that we have learned. With piracy being a form of theft, we can say that it’s wrong because it’s against morality.
From Kantianism, taking the developers as an example, we know that they should be treated as they deserved to be respected of their Intellectual Property works. Developers develop software and sells it. The profit that they will earn is the reward for their efforts and contribution and they deserved it. But some people who commit software piracy does not seem to think like that. Developers are not robots who just provide us software and then not get something in return. With this kind of mindset, developers will lose motivation and interest in developing software or further pursue their passion and might end up quitting their job.
Some people defends that they pirated it but will never buy it in the first place. This may be due to they are unsure if they will be satisfied with the software or it’s just that it sucks so spending money will be a waste. Well, this may make sense, as the person never really intends to buy it and its not that a loss to the developer if he will not earn if the software is not good at all. But still with Kantianism being applied here, we will have to see if everyone thinks the same way mentioned in the first sentence in this paragraph, then the developer will really earn nothing. But if many people downloaded and uses it, which means the software is popular, then the developer should earn from it. This situation is a contradiction because if people don’t have the intention to buy the software in the first place, then they are not allowed or have no right to use the software or even download it for free.
Software piracy is an illegal doing and that it is already a crime punishable by law. My stand is that I am against software piracy because BSA’s job is to eliminate software piracy which means piracy is really not good. I have provided several arguments about anti-piracy either when it comes to economy impact, ethics, and morality, which all came from different references. So if we want to further improve in technology taking into consideration the people behind those, we should do what is ethical, legal, and morally right, as it just does benefit the contributors, but to the user experience as well.
https://www.techopedia.com/definition/6275/bsa-the-software-alliance-bsa
https://www.ptc.com/en/documents/software-piracy/faq#considered-a-crime
Abu-Arafah, A. (n.d.). The Ethical and Economical Arguments Against Software Piracy (PDF)
http://blog.nus.edu.sg/jgbbg/2012/04/06/arguments-for-and-against-piracy-valid-or-not/
