Usage of Unauthorized Software in Taiwan by Jane Lu Hsu and Ya-Lan Su - Article Example

Running head: Review: Usage of unauthorized Software in Taiwan Introduction The purpose of this review is to provide an objective analysis, critique and review of article “Usage of unauthorized software in Taiwan” by Jane Lu Hsu And Ya-Lan Su Of National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan which was published in social behavior and personality journal in the year 2008. The article utilizes statistical analysis to present its findings and the article is intentioned for specialists dealing with software piracy issues. The review provides a recap of the article within the context, and it’s purposed to offer impartial critique of the contents of the article Summary The article, which argues that usage of unauthorized software in Taiwan is at a high level, collects statistical researched from different strata of users, on the sources of pirated software, people likely to use the pirated software and the types of pirated software. The article is significant in presenting detailed data on the level of piracy, it does not convince on offering considerable information on the impacts of the activity, the article should therefore be fostered with research, while at the same time discussing the extensively the implications of piracy in Taiwan. Article Critique The informative article (Jane & Ya-Lan, 2008) is about piracy in Taiwan with the authors’ purpose stated in the introduction and repeated at the body of the article that the objective in this study was to examine the usage of unauthorized software in Taiwan to reveal how the unauthorized software is obtained, the types of unauthorized software, and user evaluations of unauthorized software. The line of argument of the article is that the usage of unauthorized software affects the revenue of manufacturers and the intentions of investing in research and development of new products, from several related researches, considering that investors shy from software development ventures if there is possibility of the software being pirated. The authors however, does not immensely engage in giving statistical evidences concerning the perceived impacts of the software piracy, but rather quotes the International Intellectual Property Alliance that in Taiwan, the piracy level of business software was estimated to be 42%, and business software piracy caused US$ 77.5 million losses in 2005, the paper further quotes past researches that persons who use unauthorized products in most cases concepts of respect for intellectual properties, and are driven by the cheaper prices of pirated products. The authors concentrates on presenting the prevalence levels of software piracy, among diverse demography, but the prevalence of the software piracy is not in itself a problem, the problem is the losses suffered by the manufactures and investors, the research however fails to substantially illustrate how the loses occur, and the evidences to support such loses. Whereas the evidences is well presented, they concentrate more on outlining the levels of usage of pirated software and are not sufficient to illustrate loses associated with software piracy. Furthermore whereas the article outlines several measures that have been taken by the government, such as the continued sustained copyright enforcement campaign against piracy, altering copyright law, enforcement against corporate piracy and effectual enforcement against internet piracy, it does not offer sufficient evidences on the consequences of the actions taken, or what really facilitated the government to adopt such measures. For the research to achieve its line of argument that software piracy affects revenues of manufacturers and investors, it could rather carry out a research concerning the perceived and actual levels of impacts, but not on the prevalence of piracy. The authors furthermore offers evidence to suggest that computer users who are younger and have a limited budget are more likely to use pirated software; however, from the results of the questionnaire, the connection in terms of correlation between limitation of budget in young computer users, and the likelihood to use pirated software is not well captured and presented and the evidence does not necessarily present such relationship. The evidence is therefore not substantially convincing, since after reading the article, a reader is understands that there is a high level of usage of unauthorized software in Taiwan, but not convinced that the usage of unauthorized software has any negative impacts to the world in general and to the people of Taiwan in particular. The researcher furthermore promotes a unitary perspective on unauthorized software, supporting assertions that software piracy has negative impacts; several other researches have however argued of the contrary, presenting that the global prevalence of software piracy is enhanced by its benefits to the users. This line of argument is not presented in the paper, where the respondents were not offered questions to offer their perceptions on benefits of the activity, whereas the paper presents the activity as unethical, ethics has been argued to be a relative term dependant on several factors, in essence the authors fails to capture contradictory opinions from his/her perception. Furthermore, the article does not present or refute opposing lines of argument, but rather concentrates on a unidirectional perspective. Article review: Information technology, globalization and ethics Introduction The objective of the review is to offer an objective analysis and review of article by Richard De George titled “Information technology, globalization and ethics”. The author states that the purpose of the article is to examine the lack of fit between digitalized information and copyright protection and the issue of outsourcing of Information Technology jobs from the United States, hence illustrating the overlap of computer ethics and business ethics. The purpose of the author is stated at the beginning of the article on the introduction part as an informative statement. Summary In précis the article is demonstrates the overlap of business ethics and computer ethics by investigating two concerns. First is the lack of concord between digitalized information and copyright protection, where the author argues that that there exists a legal and moral difference. The article further presents out sourcing of Information Technology jobs from the US, where the author argues that in the global context, the activity is good. The article has several strengths in that the purpose and arguments are clear and logical with sufficient supporting arguments, while the presented evidence is sufficient and convincing, the article further explores alternative points of view and arguments, hence attaining objectivity. Critique The article, (Richard, 2006) is intentioned to be read by the general public as well as experts in ethics and regulatory issues. The main lime of argument of the first part of the article is that information has become increasingly important in business and technological developments, the desire for the protection of intellectual property which in itself a controversial subject, by profit-making organizations in free enterprise or capitalist-type societies has increased. The desire has been fostered by protective legislations which do not consider the fact that information is more useful when shared; therefore the legislations have failed to transfer the benefits of information to all, arguing that copyright laws fail to perfectly fit computer programs adding that ethics and laws are not ultimately the same, since what is unlawful does not necessarily imply that it is unethical, while what is ethical cannot always be legal. The main line of argument is philosophical and logical considering that legal provisions are constrained to the regulatory boundaries covered by law while ethical considerations do vary in different places and setups; this is offered by the author to support the main line of argument. The author further offers several arguments to support the main line of argument, he argues that copyright laws can be legally and morally binding if the appropriate legislation organ properly passes laws that does not promote anything immoral, further suggesting that individuals are limited from making the choice of what laws to subscribe to depending on their morality, therefore some conditions set down by copyright legislation may be morally compulsory due to being legally mandatory. The author offers several evidences to support the line of argument, a succinct on the diversity of legal requirements and morality in the continual increment of the duration of copyright in the United states from the initial period of 14 years in 1790, and by 1998, by additional 20 years having being extended to the life of the author plus 50 years, whereas the additional 20 years, may be legally acceptable, from the moral perspective it derives the public works expected to enter the public domain, just to benefit few individuals, hence being morally indefensible. Furthermore, the author provides numerous points of note to demonstrate that copyright laws are improper for software such as the dynamism of the computing industry where the copyright period makes it untenable and meaningless to hold copyright long enough for a product to become obsolete and useless, and that computer programs can be copied by use of computers. To illustrate this the author offers sufficient examples such as the Mickey Mouse case of Disney Corporation, Microsoft Windows operating system from Microsoft and the availability of freeware as an alternative to the proprietary software, the evidences are therefore well presented, sufficient and convincing. The author furthermore considers different points of view regarding the perceptions of what is legal and what is ethically moral. On the subsequent part of the article, concerning outsourcing of Information Technology jobs from the United States, the main line of argument is that Computers and information technology have made possible the globalization of business on an unprecedented scale resulting to the transfer of jobs in the service sector—including computer-related jobs from the United States to other countries. The main line of argument is supported by statistical researches such as the Forrester Research hence being logical and practical. The author considers diverse perceptions of the subject matter, from the outsourcing nation perception, from the insight of the sourcing nation and from the overall global perspective. Furthermore the article expounds outsourcing from workers perspective, government’s perspective and corporation perspective hence providing alternative points of view. The article furthermore on each perspective considers both the positive and negative impacts of outsourcing and offers a global perspective which is a balance of all the issues considered, hence offering a non biased analysis of outsourcing. Reference List Jane Lu Hsu & Ya-Lan su 2008, ‘Usage of Unauthorized Software in Taiwan’, Social Behavior and Personality Journal, Vol. 36, Issue1, pp 1-8. Richard De George 2006, ‘Information technology, globalization and ethics’, Ethics and Information Technology, Vol. 8, pp. 29-40. Read More