Legal Aspect of IT Essay

Ethical Aspect of Using Information on the Internet

One of the ethical dilemmas that the internet users face is the need to protect the information received from unauthorised people.

Mostly, comments posted online could threaten personal security or reputation, a situation that creates the need to protect the identity of the person disclosing such information (Crane & Matten 2010, p. 24).

For example, as provided in the third case, the woman who posted an article online to criticize her boss forgot that the employer was already a friend on the social media site, making it possible for him to have access to the information.

This shows that if she had exercised ethics in articulating her views, she could not confront her employer directly via the social media. Indeed, the information was a real threat to the person’s safety or reputation, just as her complaints tainted the image of her boss.

The other ethical dilemma was the diversity of information available online. Interaction among the people from different family backgrounds, sexes, religion, colour, social status among other attributes takes place via the internet (Day 2009, p. 48).

In most companies, conflict of interest occurs when one’s demands affect his/her duties and the level of performance.

Conflict of interest lowers a person’s integrity and might cause anxiety in the organisation. In this regard, family and organisational ethics require that the stakeholders should not be overwhelmed with personal interests at the expense of their duties and colleagues (Walsh 2011, p. 12).

This might compromise the level of interaction and integrity among the workers, because self-interest and nature of the duty may not correlate.

Using Someone Else’s Intellectual Property

The problem of intellectual property on the internet is another ethical problem that an organisation has to consider.

A person’s expertise, skills and knowledge are some of the intellectual properties that the internet users have to respect and preserve for the owner’s economic growth and development (Bouchoux, 2004, p. 87).

For instance, Danny Ferrer was not justified to sell illegal software because copywriting software is a way of interfering with one’s intellectual property.

He used the copyrighted software to make profit even though the original version was not his property. This means that he did not apply ethics in doing the business.

Moral and Legal Issues with Software Piracy and Its Affects

Software is used in the finance and non-finance industry to manage sales of various companies. The moral and legal requirements indicate that the internet users are expected to apply technology related terms and conditions about a given software.

Importantly, the internet users should know the particular ways to work with several software applications based on the moral and legal issues (Bouchoux, 2004, p. 107).

The internet users are also expected to have the knowledge to use the software applications, communication tools and network components of the internet so that they could understand the legal implications of software piracy.

Piracy affects intellectual property, thus a company should spend more time training the users on the implications of software piracy (McJohn 2008, p. 40).

For example, in the first case, Danny Ferrer infringed on the intellectual rights of the software developer by selling counterfeit copies to make profit for him and his colleagues.

The application of moral principle in using software is a more reliable way of minimising cases of piracy.

Moral and Legal Issues with Music Piracy and Copyright Issues

Piracy threatens music industry if it is left without monitoring and adherence to legal measures. This indicates that there should be moral and legal principles to govern copyright issues so that the producers remain protected (Bouchoux, 2004, p. 108).

Mostly, people who benefit from music production are the composers. Therefore, increasing the use of technology can enhance the knowledge of internet users. In this regard, strict laws and encouraging morality are the best ways to prevent music piracy and protect intellectual property by upholding copyright laws (Crane & Matten 2010, p. 24).

Technology is not expected to replace the normal and acceptable method of producing music, but it should supplement the approaches.

The authority should adopt practical ways to make sure that the internet users do not abuse the copyright laws. In this regard, the music owners should be equipped with all the necessary skills and tools to prevent piracy.

The fact that the music producers will only benefit from postulated increase in sales, especially if the laws governing piracy and copyrights are streamlined supports the need to protect the players in this industry (McJohn 2008, p. 44).

However, morality plays a significant role in ensuring that intellectual property is respected.

Whether Music should be Free on the Internet

Music industry creates a number of employment opportunities for those who are interested in that sector or operating entertainment joints.

As an economic venture, the musicians and music producers believe that the technologically driven products have a future in the competitive market due to increasing preference for online products.

The music industry is capital intensive and if the products are free on the Internet, then those who engage in this activity for economic gain will not benefit. Therefore, music should not be free on the Internet to make sure that the musicians benefit from their effort.

As provided in the second case, legalising free download of online music might destroy the music industry, because the producers will not benefit from their career.

Cyber Bullying Affecting Lives of People

Increase of online bullying has raised a lot of concern among the internet users in both developed and developing countries.

Notably, the people’s awareness of its prevalence in many internet sites has significantly increased, and they have expressed worries that the increase of such actions might have serious consequences in society (National Crime Prevention Centre 2011, p. 1).

There are certain beliefs that bullying is part of internet practices, which are passed from one generation to the next, thus ending it seems like eroding a deeply rooted culture. Internet bullying is part of the cyber crimes, which are deliberately committed to threaten technology users.

Despite the revelation that bullying has negative impacts on the victims, the practice is still common in cyber and other places including schools (Perron, 2011, p. 51).

Moreover, the victims of cyber bullying tend to perpetuate it since they underwent the same ordeal as they got used to the system.

Disadvantages of Social Networking Sites

Using new social networking is disadvantageous, because some unauthorised people might have the opportunity to access communication of their colleagues, thus interfering with one’s privacy. This might affect socialisation in the workplace due to information leakage.

Through using social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebok, MySpace, and LinkedIn, the user might be addicted to the system (Hughes & Kroehler 2011, p. 105). This could make him/her waste a lot of productive time.

Furthermore, excessive use of social networking sites might decrease the competence among the workers, thus reduce their efficiency during production.

The other problem with social networking sites is that some of the information found there are no reliable and seemed to be targeting unsuspecting users.

In such sites, many people lose a lot of money by making membership subscriptions to enjoy the services offered, only to find that such services do not meet the client’s demands.

References

Bouchoux, D 2004, Intellectual property for paralegals: the law of trademarks, copyrights, patents, and trade secrets, Delmar Cengage Learning Publishers, New York.

Crane, A & Matten, D 2010, Business ethics: Starbucks Corporation, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Day, R 2009, Introduction to family processes, 5th edn, Routledge Academic, London.

Hughes, M & Kroehler, C 2011, Sociology: the core, 10th edn, McGraw-Hill, New York.

McJohn, S 2008, Intellectual property: examples & explanations, Wolters Kluwer Law & Business Publishers, Austin.

National Crime Prevention Centre 2011, Public safety. Web.

Perron, T 2011, NJ takes lead – school nurses in key position to combat bullying. Web.

Walsh, F 2011, Normal family processes: growing diversity and complexity, The Guilford Press, New York.