I am a computer dependant person. Of all my worldly possessions my hard drive and my wireless broadband are what I hold most dearly to my heart. My laptop follows me around the house like a favourite pet, even keeping me company in my kitchen when i am forced to cook dinner. And I am not alone, as the two other laptop pets follow around my fellow housemates. However in all my hours of computer use i have never considered my actions unethical. I am still yet to download a song illegally, yet upon close inspection this seemed to be the limit of my moral boundaries of internet use.
I do not download music illegally, but I am unopposed to sharing the downloaded music of others. Somewhat like receiving stolen goods, it’s not stealing but it’s definitely not legal. Open source software is another example of a potential ethical issue I was blatantly unaware of. The fact I can download necessary software for free off the internet is an opportunity I have utilised on many occasion. Wave editors and movie decoders are plentifully available without financial obligation. So why would I bother paying for them. However what i have never considered during these transactions is whether the software I am downloading is truly “open source” or an illegal and inferior copy. In exploring this issue i discover I could download editions of the program Photoshop, an expensive Microsoft program, for free. However these are illegal copies of copyrighted material. Downloading them would be both illegal and unethical. But what for those programs which are less know. How can the average internet user are expected to know which programs are open source and which are illegal copies? And to what degree can users be held accountable for their own ignorance? These are all examples of how technology is accelerating at a rate the law cannot match, and where education of appropriate and ethical computer and internet use may be necessary.
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Interesting post melinda. One thing i would like to point out is that by copying friends music you are still in breach of copyright (i hate when people refer to downloading music/movies/games/programs as stealing, it's not stealing it's copyright infringement, but i'll leave that for another rant) Whether you are copying it from your friends or from someone you've never met on a peer to peer network it's still technically the same thing.
As for finding open source software the biggest repository of open source projects is SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/). They have hundreds of thousands of open source projects and you can be sure that everything you download is free and legal.
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