Software Liability - Essay Example

We need to know more about software liability and know who should be held liable. Issues It is therefore helpful to know what should be protected to be able to make sure that software users are sheltered unintended consequences for any malfunction. Every piece of software comes will a license agreement which strips off the creator for any liability that may result using their product (Tompkins, 2000). We cannot just let the companies sell their products and then by just a click of the license agreement, the programmers are not liable anymore.

What if the software is used in medical fields where lives are at risk? What protection should be provided for the end users? Do we have existing protection for the software users? Are the creators, programmers, owners protected too? Discussion Software users should therefore be protected with the contract that they had agreed with the providers, developers or programmers. Each software user enters into a contract or license agreement with the providers believing that all the statements regarding the product they wanted to buy or use are true.

Thus, any defects and malfunctions of each product or software should be given utmost attention and reparation. According to Kaner (1997), there are a lot of theories which a software consumer is protected and software developer can be sued. The software developer or programmer can be held liable for criminal act and intentional tort, which includes intentional tampering of the consumer’s computer or loading viruses (Kaner, 1997). A consumer can also sue for strict liability and negligence which a defective product caused injury and damage to the consumer since each company has duty to take reasonable measures to make the product safe (Kaner, 1997).

Kaner (1997) also included fraud, negligent misrepresentation, unfair deceptive trade practice, unfair competition, and FTC enforcement to cover for misrepresentation of product and other fraudulent and deceptive acts of the programmers regarding the software. Lastly, a programmer or company can be sued for breach of contract when in each software transaction, a user and a provider engages in a contract which gives obligation to each other (Kaner, 1997). These protections should not be expanded anymore.

Venters (2007) stated that we also need to consider the types of failures that happen. As he explained, there is a big difference between intentional failure and accidental failure (Venters, 2007). Even if we say that consumers can greatly be affected by the malfunctions or defects of the product, we must also consider that the providers such as programmers or developers also did their best to provide the best product with good intention. The software producers, programmers, developers and owners are also protected.

The scope of protection and likelihood of enforcement of protection varies by country (International Legal Protection for Software, n.d.). They are protected by Trade Act and other intellectual property and copyright laws in several countries. They are also protected by the license agreement that the consumers or users and providers agreed into. Every time the users agree into license agreement, they are agreeing to the contract and therefore waiving their rights to complain regarding the products they are using.

The consumers agreed to purchase the product stating that providers are not liable for any problems that may arise after such transaction. This is their