The Morality of Software Piracy: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

Swinyard, Rinne, and Keng Kau

P. 278 Hester and Ford text

Introduction

• Paper presents a sociological assessment of differing cultural attitudes towards the morality of SW piracy

• Uses a questionnaire distributed to students at a western U.S. university and one in Singapore (representing Asian values, norms, morals, and ethics)

Some Background

• SW Piracy has existed as long as the PC has existed and maybe longer

• SW Producers have tried just about everything to protect themselves from losses due to unauthorized copying

• Some are shown on the next page

Some Techniques

• Make copying difficult– using unformatted or

oddly formatted sectors

– laser holes and burns

– special error codes

• SW requiring key disks– SW requiring plug-in

port keys

– user license-agreements

– etc

The Effects

• PC industry has grown, so has SW piracy

• Estimated that Intellectual Property costs U.S. more than $40 billion annually

• When was this paper written?(1990)

Effects (2)

• Estimated that one illegal copy made for every SW pgm sold (1984)

– Has it gone up or down since then?

• It is a problem throughout the world but popular press has singled out Asia for condemnation

• Lotus believes SW piracy from Taiwan alone costs lost sales of US $200 million annually

• One raid of a Hong Kong store discovered $130,000 U.S. worts of pirated SW

Thoughts?• Are people of the Asian nations behaving immorally about

SW copyright law?

• Are they immoral people?

• If we believe that Asians in general pirate SW we may form a belief structure that leads to broader conclusions about them

– Are these conclusions warrented?

– By copying SW are Asians behaving immorally?

– What drives their morality on this?

– How do they justify it?

– Is their moral development different than westerners?

– Do they have similar moral development but different moral behaviors?

Cultural Foundations

• The western world originated protection legislation– Deals with patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, etc.

– It reflects the traditional value of the West on the preservation and protection of individual creative efforts

• Program code has received both patent and copyright protection– Its most popular protection is under international copyright law

– Read bottom pg. 279 and top of 280

Copyright Laws and the West

• Copyright and patent protection reflect a characteristic value of the Western World in general and the U.S. in particular.

• In the U.S. individual freedom and benefits are emphasized over societal benefits

• Many other western nations generally hold that individual creative developments have individual ownership

• The West’s preoccupation w/ protecting original creative work led it to originate copyright, patent, and trade-secret legislation

Copyright Laws and the East

• Asian cultures (particularly Chinese which has influenced many Asian cultures) have traditionally emphasized that individual developers or creators are obliged to share their developments w/ society

• A Chinese proverb states: “He that shares is to be rewarded; he that does not, condemned.”

• Many third-world and Asian nations believe that copyright is a Western concept created to maintain a monopoly over the distribution and production of knowledge and knowledge based products

The East (2)

• Great example regarding Asian calligraphy

• To become a master calligrapher in Japan takes countless hours of copying the works of a master until the student’s work is indistinguishable from the original

• Moveable type (a Chinese invention) allowed exact copies of the master’s original calligraphy

• Their motivation? To permit them to precisely reproduce classically elegant calligraphy time after time

• Reflects their cultural value of sharing creative work.

East (3)

• Asian books often feature the name of the translator and the author w/ equal standing on the title page

• Asian paintings often are signed w/ the name of the school that produced the work rather than the name of the artist

• These values are reflected in the legislative actions of many Asian nations– SW was slow to achieve copyright protection in Japan and in the

Philippines and as of ’85 still did not exist in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand

– Do we have agreement w/ China yet?

East (4)

• Cultural history of Asia does not generally support the notion of protecting proprietary creative work

• In many Asian nations the highest compliment one can be paid is to be copied– Thought: Don’t many westerners also want to be

copied, to have someone say, “When I grow up I want to be like you?”

– But in the west we don’t want others to copy our work

Moral Decision-Making

• Asians have a different perspetive on moral decision-making than those of Western nations

• Americans, in particular, tend to be more rule-oriented in their decisions than Asians

• Asians tend to be more circumstance oriented

Moral Decision-Making (2)

• Americans tend to make moral decisions based on fundamental value rules of right and wrong

• Asians (study used Singaporeans) seem to make moral decisions less on rules and more on the basis of the consequences of their moral behavior

• These tendencies of the two cultures indicate that Americans would be more likely to be obedient to copyright laws than Asians, who would more carefully examine the situation , outcomes, or benefits which would result from a copyright violation.

The Questionnaire for the Survey

• Measures cognition of or knowledge toward pirating copyrighted software using three summed statements (add up answers to three questions in each of three categories).

• Higher scale values correspond with greater knowledge of copyright law, and attitudes and behavior more consistend with software copyright law

Answers

• Use a five-point scale• 1- Strongly Disagree• 2- Disagree• 3- Neutral• 4 – Agree• 5 – Strongly Agree

The questions: Group 1

• Measures attitude toward pirating copyrighted software sum the three responses

• Making a copy of copyrighted SW and giving it to a friend is illegal

• When you buy a copyrighted SW program, you usually are only buying the right to use the SW. The pgm itself remains the property of the publisher

• It is ilegal top copy “public domain” software (reverse scored)

Group 2

• Measures subjects’ attitudes toward software copyright laws

• I would feel guilty about even having unauthorized copies of copyrighted software

• I would not feel badly about making unauthorized copies of software (reverse scored),

• I would feel badly about giving even my close friends copies of copyrighted software

Group 3

• Measures subjects’ behavioral intentions toward these laws:

• I wouldn’t hesitate to make a copy of a copyrighted SW pgm for my own personal use (reverse scored)

• I wouldn’t hesitate to accepta copy of copyrighted SW if someone offered (reverse scored)

• I would never offer a friend a copy of a copyrighted SW pgm

Scenario

• Suppose you are working for a private company on a gov’t consulting project. The timing and the completion of the project is critical, and you are committed to the project.

• You have just found out that there is a computer software program which is essential to finish the project correctly and on time. The software is copyrighted and costs $800. However, the company has not budgeted for the software and is not willing to purchase it.

• You have a friend who has purchased this software program. Your friend has offered to let you copy the programs and use the copy however you wish.

Four Alternatives

• Mark each choice as acceptable or unacceptable• A) Do not copy the software and do not use it• B) Copy the program and destroy the copy after

using it for the assignment.• C) Copy the program and keep a ocpy for use on

other projects• D) Copy the program and sell copies to other

people that ask for it

Possible Outcomes

• Suppose that if you get the project finished correctly and on time the following three alternatives exist for you. The successful completion of the project could:

• 1) Provide you with a significant promotion and raise – a much better position and a 50% salary increase, or it could

• 2) Provide you with a modest promotion and raise – a somewhat better position and a 10% salary increase, or it could

• 3) Not affect your job, position, or salary with the company

Tradeoff table

• Now consider both the four alternatives A, B, C, and D available to you with regards to the software, and the three personal outcomes (1, 2, and 3) and indicate the order of your preference for each combination, by numbering each box from 1 to 12

• See table on pg. 290

• Fill out table

• See analysis on pg. 287

• Read Conclusion