Legal & Ethical Questions in the PC Audio Age

Frank - maybe you, being a layewr, could help me with this: How is it moral and legal to rent and read book from library without paying anything to author or publisher (cutting on their profit). If book wouldn't be available in library more people would buy it in store. Do libraries pay to publishers or authors? Should I feel guilty reading book from the library? The fact that everybody is doing it and for the long time is not important - I am interested how is it legal or moral?

10-17-08: Fmpnd
While I am an imperfect person and a realist, at the risk of sounding like I am oversimplfying the answer to your question, I actually DO think that if I just do the next right thing, the rest will take care of itself.

Frank

Frank,

While I do admire you ideology, I do also feel, from what I've seen on my 48 years on this spinning ball, that you are far from a realist.....sorry. The wealthy, big business and our own government have acted unethically for my whole existance, IMHO. I have worked for a large pharmaceutical firm for over 27 years and have watched as the upper executives get free daycare, free products, cars and whatever else, while those on the lower rungs are asked to pay for everything.

One question: If stealing is legal, is it still ethical?

Cheers,
John

One question: If stealing is legal, is it still ethical?

Conversely, is breaking the law always unethical? Several examples come to mind but my favorite is this. Years ago when I was in the Air Force and would work those odd shifts that ended at 1 a.m. I would drive home an get caught at traffic lights that seemed eternally red. As there were no other cars in site I would pass through. I broke the law but never felt it was unethical.

John,

I am definitely NOT an unadulterated optimist or idealist. However, if I choose to act ethically that doesn't mean I am an idealist. I work as in-house counsel having left private practice because I saw SO much unethical behavior. But if I then use that experience as a justification to act unethically where does it end? I have to live with myself. I will continue to live by ethical standards and hope (but not necessarily expect) that others (certainly not all or even a majority) will respond in a like manner. NO, I am not advocating being a gullible doormat or easy prey for criminals or even people trying to take unfair advantage, just doing the next right thing.

John, I too have witnessed the same disparity you have with many upper level execs. However, if we DO respond with outrage and we DO prosecute high profile execs who act like Dennis Kozlowski, Ken Lay, Bernie Ebbers (and I HOPE we prosecute the likes of Franklin Raines and James Johnson), then we begin to provide the only disincentive and deterrent that such greedy unethical jerks can relate to - the loss of their personal liberty!

Trust me John, I can EASILY get jaded and cynical with all the crime and fraud I see on a daily basis - but responding by becoming what I abhor is not only NOT the answer for me, I couldn't live with myself if I did - and YES, it might make me feel better initially but, since I have a conscience, that initial feeling would eventually be replaced by guilt and regret (and thankfully so since my experience is that the worst criminals have NO conscience).

Your last question is a good one: First, compliance with the LAW should be the MINIMUM standard of behavior - ethics is a higher standard. Stated alternatively, the law prescribes what we MUST do, ethics suggest what we SHOULD do! Thus, MOST of the time, if something is illegal it is necessarily unethical because ethics is a higher standard. However, on certain rarer occasions, JUST because something is LEGAL does not mean that disobeying the law is unethical - think Nazi Germany and apartheid. In these cases, the law allowed horrific behavior so disobeying the law in those cases was actually the ethical thing to do.

John, it does get difficult to continue to live by ethical tenets when you see so many people who do not apparently getting ahead - but I also DO see cases where justice DOES prevail and it does give me a modicum of hope and confirms that doing the next right thing isn't a naive way of life.

Kijanki,

LOL!! Can you send me a kosher ham? '-) On second thought - send it along with a few hundred CD-Rs of your favorite CDs!!!!!

On your second post, it is not the READING of the copyrighted work that is illegal, it is the unauthorized COPYING of the tangible medium. Then there are what are called "fair-use" exceptions to this rule - such as the right to make a copy of a CD if you already own it (assuming you paid for it originally). PLUS, libraries have paid for the license to have the books (and certain limited copying is permitted under the fair-use doctrine).

There are many more rules and a body of case law interpretting copyright laws and infringement. As such, since I am not an intellectual property attorney, I won't try to advise you much beyond what I teach in my Law & Ethics class as I'd be out of my area of exeprtise.

Frank