AUTHOR

Kai Kimppa

ABSTRACT

Spinello (2003) points out that intellectual property rights (IPR’s) have received too little attention in the field of information technology ethics from philosophers. The legal scholars (see e.g. Sixth Annual Ethics and Technology Conference Proceedings, various legal publications, including the Yale Law Journal and the Journal of Law and Philosophy) have tackled the problems to a larger degree, but mainly from a more applied point of view rather than approaching the question of what kinds of rights would be right or good. Philosophers ought to contribute more to this discussion. Spinello also points out, that “[i]n light of digital technology it is especially critical to re-examine the underpinnings of the moral legitimacy for intellectual property protection.’ The re-examination of the underpinnings of the moral legitimacy for IPR’s seems to both start from and lead us to somewhat different directions. Spinello seems to start from the current situation rather than a no-IPR’s situation which leads him to advocate a shortened and possibly less stringent IPR protection, labeling a situation of no intellectual protection ‘information anarchy’.

Spinello (2003) claims that if we “accept some version of the Lockean perspective that individuals have a natural entitlement to control the results of their labor” it would transfer over to the immaterial as well as the material results of that labor. Kimppa (2003a) (See also e.g. Long, 1995 and Kinsella, 2001), has approached the question of IPR’s from a Lockean liberalist position and come to quite different conclusions. Since the immaterial is nonrivalrous, the Lockean claim that as much and as good must be left for others, at least in the starting situation, still holds. Thus we need to start from a situation where no IPR’s are granted and consider whether such rights would benefit or worsen the condition of the society or societies. Papers presented by Kimppa (2003a, 2003b) have raised considerations of whether the consequences of such a system would be, in the consequentialist sense, good or not.

In this paper I will go through the main arguments for IPR’s from the consequentialist point of view and show their weaknesses and the main criticisms which the no-IPR’s view has received from the consequentialist camp. I will start by showing that the main utilitarian argument that we should try to maximize the good of the society has been misunderstood by many among both the legal scholars and economists to mean only quantitative good measured in – especially when considering the loss of potential profits if IPR’s were to be abandoned – profit. Not enough attention has been paid to the qualitative aspects of good, of understanding what constitutes good for the members of society and whether it is equally transferable from one person to another.

Then I will turn my attention to the claims that innovation would suffer were we to abandon IPR’s. I will point out, that not all innovations are qualitatively equal in importance for the users. Those innovations that stem from the need of the innovator, rather than the need of the marketing department, rise from concerns of what is needed rather than the concerns of what can be marketed.

After this I will consider that in consequentialist thinking ‘as much good for as many as possible’ the ‘for as many’ seems to have been forgotten. I will first approach the issue of whether a society in which one has lot and others have little is better or worse than a society in which all have some, even if the latter society has less over-all than the first society. Then I will tackle the question of who the current IPR system will benefit. Whether it will benefit the rich or the poor, the corporation or the citizen – with-in societies and in-between them – and whether the so-called ‘trickle down theory’ seems to work or not.

I will also approach the question of whether IPR’s in software and other digitally distributable media indeed grant limited monopolies as claimed by their advocates or actually grant unlimited monopolies, at least for all practical purposes, and what are the consequences of that.

I will point out that verification of the benefits of current IPR’s is very difficult if not impossible and that the original reasoning for them has long since abated. I will argue, that they can’t be upheld for ‘just in case’, since they might promote creativity, if we have no solid ground for the claim and if we have multitude of examples where they clearly inhibit creativity instead of promoting it.

And finally, I will propose alternative solutions rising from Free Software Foundations position and consider gains and losses we would have to face if they were adopted instead of the current laws and practices.

REFERENCES

Kimppa, Kai K. Intellectual Property Rights in Software: Justifiable from a Liberalist Position? – The Free Software Foundations Position in Comparison to John Locke’s Concept of Property. The Sixth Annual Ethics and Technology Conference, Intellectual Property Rights in a Networked World, pp. 143-152, Boston College, June 27-28, 2003(a).

Kimppa, Kai K. Redistribution of power from government to intellectual property rights owners and organizations looking after their interests: Justifiable from a liberalist position? Second Summer School by IFIP WG 9.2, 9.6/11.7, 9.8, Risks and Challenges of the Network Society. 4-8 August 2003(b), Karlstad University, Sweden. Preceedings available at: http://www.cs.kau.se/IFIP-summerschool/preceedings/Kimppa.pdf

Kinsella, N. Stephan. Against Intellectual Property. Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 15, no. 2, Spring 2001:1-53, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2001. http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/15_2/15_2_1.pdf (Last checked January 10, 2003).

Long, Roderick T. The Libertarian Case Against Intellectual Property Rights. Formulations, Autumn 1995. Libertarian Nation Foundation. Also available at: http://libertariannation.org/a/f31l1.html (last checked January 9, 2003).

Spinello, Richard A. The future of intellectual property. Ethics and Information Technology, 5: 1-16, 2003.

AUTHOR

Ian Kerr and Jane Bailey

ABSTRACT

The proliferation in our ability to copy and disseminate information through electronic means has been driven by inexpensive and powerful personal computing equipment, coupled with widespread access to network technologies. As a result, it is possible to encode various kinds of information into digital form, duplicate the digital content without loss of fidelity, and transmit it to incredible numbers of recipients worldwide at negligible incremental cost. This new environment provides many opportunities for the rapid and inexpensive dissemination of digital content. It also poses special challenges for the enforcement of copyright in various kinds of digitized works. As a result, rights owners are increasingly turning to the use of technological protection measures to enforce and protect their rights in digital content. Digital Rights Management Systems (DRMs) are one kind of answer to the question of how to protect intellectual property in the digital age – namely, through technology rather than law or norms.

While some technologies can be used to protect intellectual property owners, other technologies can also be employed to circumvent them. Given the ease of copying and disseminating digital information upon circumvention, anti-circumvention laws are an increasingly important consideration. At the same time, it is important to remember that circumvention devices can be used to both ignoble and noble effect: they can be used to infringe copyright or, alternatively, to restore a work to the public domain. This complicates the question whether law ought to be used to protect the technologies that protect copyright.

Many countries have recognized the need to investigate the possible value of adopting legislation that addresses the appropriate use of technological protection measures, the consequences of illicit circumvention, and the parameters of protection afforded when circumvention is justified. Some States (including the US, the European Union, Japan, and Australia) have already enacted such legislation. The implementation of provisions regulating the use of DRMs in these jurisdictions has been the subject of much academic debate and criticism.

While much academic attention has been devoted to these issues from the perspective of copyright law, there has been a relative paucity of literature examining the broader social-implications of such legislation for other core ethical commitments.

For example, the technological means by which DRMs protect copyright also allow them to function as a powerful form of surveillance: authenticating personal identity, monitoring an individual’s activities and consumption habits, or collecting personal information that can be easily stored or disseminated to third parties. Are the current enforcement schemes for fair information practices sufficient to protect against such surveillance? Or do we need additional measures to ensure the enforcement of privacy protections in the digital milieu? Will an adoption of DRMs result in a diminished space for anonymous interactions? If so, will this have a controlling effect on the social participation of those who access and use works in a digital environment? What are the appropriate responses?

As it is often said that copyright is the engine of free expression, a fully informed digital copyright policy requires an understanding of how the values underlying freedom of expression might be compromised by DRMs. Would the adoption of DRMs enable the assertion of greater private control over expression? Ought our methods of constitutional analysis to include an investigation of the ways in which private action affect free expression (as opposed to traditional constitutional analysis, which tends to focus primarily on the effects of governmental action on individual expression)? When we use the word “free” in this context, what is it that we mean?

Using the legal perspective as our backdrop for addressing questions such as these, our aim in this paper is to examine the social implications of DRMs. In particular, we seek to determine whether fundamental commitments to privacy and freedom of expression are undermined by DRMs and the laws enacted to enable them.

Our analysis will address these issues from a broad social and ethical perspective.

AUTHOR

Maria Karyda, Spyros Kokolakis and Evangelos Kiountouzis

ABSTRACT

Within the past decade organizations have realized the need to protect their Information Systems (IS) and thus allocate significant resources to this endeavor. However, protecting an IS in the context of an organization is far from a trivial task and needs to be addressed in a disciplined manner. Within the IS security management agenda, a common practice is to design and apply an IS security policy or, using a more inclusive term, an IS security plan, based on the findings of the evaluation of the IS security level.

An IS security plan comprises principles and guidelines for the protection of an IS and also prescribes specific protective measures and outlines a strategy and a program for implementing the plan. The aim of applying an IS security plan is to reduce the risk an IS faces, thus to transform an IS into a security-enhanced IS. Considering the axiom that there are no hundred percent secure systems, it is generally accepted that this transformation will not result to a zero-risk IS but to a lower-risk IS. This transformation entails significant changes affecting the components as well as the operation of the IS. In most cases, and especially when the IS supports significant organisational functions, many changes need to be made for the security plan to be applied. These changes need to be made not only to the IS, but also to its organizational environment. Technical issues have been systematically examined in the IS security literature, however organizational issues remain largely unexplored, despite the fact that many researchers have stressed their importance. Previous work in this field has largely overlooked the impact of developing and implementing an IS security plan on organizations, and not any accounts have been given on the implications and changes that emerge within the organizational environment and are related with the application of the security plan. The authors’ experience in several IS security planning projects in the period 1998-2002 indicates that organizational factors play an important role in the process of the transformation of an IS into a lower-risk IS.

The above realization has lead us to an attempt to explore the implications that the application of IS security plans has on the organisational context and the organisational changes that are related to it. In this paper we seek to reveal the way IS security plans and the organisational context are formulated as a result of their interaction. To do so we have studied the process of securing an IS: from creating a security plan for a specific organisation to its implementation and use by the organisation. This process is presented in this paper as a case study, which describes the introduction of a security plan to an information system used for processing sensitive personal information, and the activities that were undertaken by the members of the organisation in order to put the security plan to action.

The Center for the Treatment of Dependent Individuals (CTDI), is a Greek Non-Governmental Organization established in 1987 that comprises more than 40 independent units concerned with prevention and treatment of drug abuse. In 2000 CTDI invited a university research group, among which were the authors of this paper, to prepare an IS Security Plan for the CTDI’s information system, which was mainly used for handling research data concerning drug addiction in Greece. The group worked with the CTDI for a period of six months to prepare a security plan comprising a security policy and a list of security countermeasures. For this project the CCTA Risk Analysis and Management Method (CRAMM) was employed. CRAMM does not provide for the analysis of social and organizational factors and the working team could only rest on their experience to handle such issues. The IS Security Plan was delivered on October 2000 and was welcomed by CTDI management, which declared their commitment to implement it. Two years latter, in the spring 2002, researchers from the same group returned to examine how the implementation of the security plan has progressed and to explore how organizational issues have affected the implementation of the plan. In the two research phases more than 30 formal in-depth interviews were conducted with various groups within the CTDI. Data collected from these interviews, as well as documents that are used within the CTDI, archives inspection and personal observation have provided us the basis for composing the case study.

For drawing our conclusions about the effects and implications that the implementation of the security plan had on CTDI, we have drawn upon Structuration Theory (ST), as initially proposed by A. Giddens. Structuration theory provides a framework for understanding social situations in terms of social structure and human interaction; within the IS literature structuration theory has been used for various purposes, among which are theorizing, analyzing, and to provide operational guidance for IS practitioners. We have used stucturation theory for understanding the social interaction among the members of the organisation and their actions with regard to the implementation of the security plan.

The conclusions we have drawn from this case study strengthen the initial observation that elements of the organisational context, and especially social interaction, have a vital role for the application of a security plan. Organisational elements should be acknowledged and taken into consideration by IS security professionals when designing an IS security plan. We also argue that there is need to further explore implications of the application of IS security plans from an organisational perspective, besides the technical perspective that is dominant in the relevant literature.

AUTHOR

Kristen MJ Johnson

ABSTRACT

The Internet first arrived in Japan in 1984 as a research network between three Japanese universities. Non-academic use in private and commercial functions slowly began to emerge nine years later (Gottlieb & McLelland 2003). In little over twenty years, it has seen profound effects in not only Japan but also throughout the rest of the world. Much literature written about the Internet praises it as nothing short of an international panacea. The idea of instantaneous information, free means of international communication and convenient storage and sharing of data is what many may consider a modern-day technological “dream come true.” However, the social and ideological implications of the Internet’s effects various divisions of Japanese society are merely on the brink of realization. One division, which is of general focus in this study, is that of women’s employment opportunities. Women in Japan have historically been considered distinctly different from men regarding gender-based societal roles. Compared internationally to other developed countries which are progressing to provide equal employment opportunities for women, Japan is still making little progress. Jobs reliant on or reinforced by the Internet have the potential to help women overcome various gender and social barriers that are proven difficult to span in employment as well as in other aspects of life. “Working on the computer from my home is my dream,” wrote a 39 year old single other caring for her four year old daughter and struggling to make ends meet (Asahi Shimbun 2003). Many women in Japan feel similar sentiments as this mother’s statement, and recently the Internet has shown itself to be a viable alternative option for women who want to begin entrepreneurial ventures. Women in Japan are using information and computer technology through the Internet to advance their employment opportunities and to promote social and gender change both ideologically and realistically.

The focus of this study is twofold: current social barriers which slow progress towards changing ideologies of women’s status in Japan and the various advantages, as well as the disadvantages and barriers, the Internet has presented to the employment situation for women in Japan. Moving from the general to the specific, this interdisciplinary study first discusses the status quo of women and work in Japan, Japan’s educational system as it relates to societal change and the Japanese concept of tatemae and honne. By taking a lateral approach to clarify these topics, I hope to provide added depth to the implications that women using the Internet to advance their employment opportunities in Japan have socially, ideologically and in every day life. This study considers a very real and present phenomenon in Japan and is designed to accurately analyze the social biases and opportunities for change through the Internet that are now present in Japan.

This study presents the various concepts of what an Internet-based business is and defining the options it presents to women in Japan. Further, I observe the panoply of resources and options that women have available to them as tools for creating Internet-reliant businesses or finding Internet-reinforced work. I attempt to present a case that is based upon the current literature available both in English and Japanese regarding women in Japan working through the Internet. Beyond this, I incorporate the qualitative research findings that I have gathered through various interviews with individuals who are themselves working through the Internet. There are case studies of both successful and unsuccessful Internet businesses, a selection of which I consider in this paper.

The Internet has proven itself to be an effective tool in enabling international communications and presenting new opportunities for employment. “In the battle of the sexes, technology has become the great leveler, offering everyone access to information and communication tools that were once unimaginable. And in Asia, women are taking what the digital economy has to offer and running with it.” (CNN 2002). The concept of women who work through the Internet is not a passing trend; however it is new territory that can present challenges for women trying to enter the realm of information and computer technology for the first time. These challenges vary from the actual technology of the Internet to standing up against a group and doing something original which is not necessarily accepted by society. The successes and challenges that this study observes all contribute to concept of what women in Japan have faced and will possibly face if they do start their own Internet-reliant business.

Japan is internationally recognized as a country that has deeply engrained cultural specificities and traditional concepts of men and women that will take time to overcome. This study presents various challenges that women in Japan still face every day. The language, the culture, and the nearly stagnant government all are obstacles that slow the progress of change and equal employment opportunity for women. Fortunately, one factor which makes the Internet what it is today is the availability and convenience of published information and support communities. In a sense, the process of overcoming a challenge and the means to overcome that challenge are both achieved in part through utilization of the Internet. This study attempts to show how women are creating Internet-reliant and Internet-reinforced businesses, using real cases designed to present the successes and challenges of Internet businesses. It also presents a sampling of the resources available to women in Japan, showing the level of support that women can access. Working with the social presence of concepts such as tatemae and honne, as well as a challenging and apparently flawed educational system, Japanese women are indeed making progress towards greater social and economic freedom. They are using information and computer technology through the Internet to advance employment opportunities and to promote social and gender change both ideologically and in reality.

REFERENCES

Asahi Shimbun (2003). Boshi Katei IT de Zaitaku Shuurou (Single Mothers Able to Work at Home Using Information Technology). Asahi Shimbun. Tokyo.

N (2002). New Economy Makes a More Level Playing Field; Women Find Business Success with Internet Technology; Did the Dog-Com Crash Affect the Sexes Equally? CNN International: Ebiz Asia, eMediaMillWorks, Inc.

Gottlieb, Nanette and Mark McLelland, Eds. (2003). Japanese Cybercultures. Asia.com. New York, Routledge.

AUTHOR

Deborah G. Johnson and Thomas M. Powers

ABSTRACT

Computer ethicists have been intrigued by the idea that computers might develop to a point at which they have intelligence of a kind that would justify treating them as moral agents, both in the sense that we would be reluctant to turn them off and in the sense that we would consider them responsible for good and evil deeds. Claims about this possibility generally lead to debates about the nature of intelligence (artificial and human) and agency. A “moral Turing test” has even been proposed to identify which computer systems might have moral intelligence or agency.

Generally, the debate over whether computers could ever be moral agents has presumed a concept of moral agency in which an individual acts with a first-person point of view. According to this account, an individual’s actions are directed at fulfilling personal desires and interests, and morality is a constraint on how those interests can be pursued, in light of the interests of others. However, there is a special, distinct kind of human moral agency known as ‘role morality’ in which individuals act as agents of others. The agent acts in this case within the constraints of a role and as the representative of others; role or “surrogate” agents pursue the desires and interests of their clients, not themselves. This is not to say that individuals acting as agents have no personal interest in their actions. Rather, the individual’s personal interest is in fulfilling the role and this involves acting on behalf of a client. We will refer to this form of moral agency as ‘surrogate agency.’ Surrogate agents act in fairly well specified social roles, such as stockbroker, lawyer, and manager of performers and entertainers.

In this paper we will argue that surrogate agency is a good model for thinking about the morality of computer agents. We will identify and delineate the ways in which computer agents are like and unlike human surrogate agents and what these similarities and differences mean for the morality of computer agents.

When a surrogate agent is hired by a client, the agent is authorized to engage in a range of activities directed at achieving a positive outcome for the client. Similarly, computer agents are put into operation to engage in activities aimed at an outcome desired by the user, that is, the person who deployed the computer program. Not only are human surrogate agents and computer agents both directed towards the interest of their client/users, both are given information by their client/users and expected to behave within certain constraints. For human surrogate agents, there generally are social and legal understandings such that when the behavior of a surrogate agent falls below a certain standard of diligence or authority, the client can sue the agent and the agent can be found liable for his or her behavior. This suggests that standards of diligence and authority should be developed for computer agents, perhaps before they are put into operation.

Several important issues arise when we look at surrogate agency and try to transfer what we learn there to computer agents. Of particular importance is the role of information in the proper functioning of a surrogate agent. An agent can properly act on behalf of a person only if the agent has accurate information relevant to the performance of the agent’s duties. For human surrogate agents, the responsibility to gather and update information often lies with those agents. For computer agents, the adequacy of information seems to be a function of the program and the person whose interests are to be served. Of course, the privacy and security of this information, in digitized form, are well-known concerns for computer ethics. A new aspect of information privacy and security is raised by computer surrogate agency: can computer programs “know” when it is appropriate to give up information (perhaps to governments or marketing agencies) about their clients?

In the last part of the paper, we will consider some broader issues that follow from our account of surrogate human and computer agency. What are the rights and responsibilities in the relationships between human surrogate agents and their clients? How far can surrogate agents go to achieve the wishes of the client? If the surrogate agent is acting on behalf of a client, is this agent absolved of moral responsibility for the action and its consequences? Transferring to the case of a computer agent leads to questions about the rights and responsibilities of computer agents and users, limits that might be placed on computer agents, and the accountability of computer agents and/or their designers and the form this accountability might take.

AUTHOR

Pat Jefferies, Frances Grodzinsky and Joe Griffin

ABSTRACT

The development of on-line learning communities across international boundaries is now a viable proposition using available asynchronous technologies. As has been reported in previous papers (Grodzinsky, Griffin & Jefferies, 2003; Griffin, Grodzinsky & Jefferies, 2003) such use has proved to be extremely valuable for supporting the teaching of computing and ethics. For example, not only does asynchronous computer conferencing offer new opportunities for students to gain valuable first-hand experience in using such technology to communicate with peers in other countries it also facilitates them gaining a more direct appreciation of the cultural, legal and ethical differences that abound. However, the setting up of successful ‘virtual’ communities with campus-based final year undergraduates based in three different countries posed a number of issues that had to be addressed prior to implementation. Prime amongst these were concerns as to how to overcome some of the perceived barriers to establishing effective groups within a text-based virtual environment across international boundaries and how to integrate use of the technology within the traditional face-to-face context of learning.

This paper will, therefore, report on how this blended approach to learning and teaching was developed and implemented using the Belbin Self-Perception Inventory (1981). This inventory asks the student to do a self-assessment and based on that to identify him/herself as a particular role type. The Self-Perception Inventory was originally developed by Dr Meredith Belbin (1981), as a consequence of research that he was undertaking into management teams. Such research led Belbin (1981) to determine that members of teams have two roles – the first one being the functional role and the second was what Belbin (1981) determined as being the Team role. In reaching his 8 classifications of team type Belbin (1981) originally used psychometric tests to relate observed team behaviour to measured psychological traits. The four principal factors isolated by these psychometric tests were – Intelligence, Dominance, Extroversion/Introversion and Stability/Anxiety. The balance of ratings an individual achieved on these four scales, plus scores on a number of subsidiary measures were then used to determine which team role he/she preferred (as well as his/her secondary preference). Each of the 8 team roles identified by Belbin (1981) were – Chairman, Shaper, Plant, Monitor/Evaluator, Company Worker, Resource Investigator, Team Worker, Finisher/Completer. Belbin (1981) gives descriptions of each of these roles that include typical features together with positive qualities and allowable weaknesses. Belbin’s (1981) research indicated that identification of these team roles, based on Intelligence, Dominance, Extroversion/Introversion and Stability/Anxiety factors, could then be used to construct balanced teams. As a consequence of this research work the Belbin (1981) Self-perception Inventory has been widely used in industry to construct management and work groups. Thus, the underpinning rationale for using this particular instrument is to try to establish effective teams by bringing together people with individual differences who have the variety of requisite skills needed for group working to see if this improves overall performance.

Some researchers do, however, feel that learning groups are of a somewhat different nature to management teams (e.g. Atherton, 2001). Whilst this may or may not be the case it was, nevertheless, felt that application of the Self-Perception Inventory would be a useful strategy to adopt for this study and would, furthermore, help students to focus on the different group roles that individuals adopt and their impact upon group dynamics. Belbin’s (1981) Self-Perception Inventory was, therefore, used to establish geographically dispersed, virtual student teams that were made up of students from the United States, UK and Ireland. Role identification became important for team creation as the students were unknown to their peers and tutors at the different sites.

This paper will, therefore, report on research undertaken into the impact that this strategy had on how the individuals actually operated within their teams in the virtual environment. It will also detail some of the findings from this case study when these perceived Belbin types were matched with transaction analysis (Wortham, 1999) and types of messages posted (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2001). Finally it will draw conclusions from the case study on the efficacy and efficiency of using profiling techniques of individuals to establish balanced learning communities and how this impacted implementation and group development. The paper will then make recommendations for future implementation of asynchronous computer conferencing within a campus-based Higher Education (HE) context.

REFERENCES

Atherton, J S, (2002), “Learning and Teaching: Deep and Surface Learning” [On-line]: UK: Available: http://www.dmu.ac.uk/~jamesa/learning/deepsurf.htm Accessed: 23 August 2002

Belbin, R. M. (1981) “Management Teams: Why they succeed or Fail”, Oxford: Heinemann

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., and Archer, W. (2001). “Critical thinking and computer conferencing: A model and tool to assess cognitive presence”. American Journal of Distance Education.

Griffin J., Grodzinsky, F. & Jefferies, P., (2002) “The Impact of using Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Tools on Moral Reasoning in a Multi-Institutional Computer Ethics Module” in the Proceedings ETHICOMP 2002, Lisbon, Portugal.

Grodzinsky,F., Griffin, J. & Jefferies, P., (2002) “Reinventing Collaborative Learning using Blackboard: A Web-Based Resource, In the Teaching of A Multi-Institutional Computer Ethics Module” in the Proceedings ETHICOMP 2002, Lisbon, Portugal.

Wortham, D. W., (1999). “Nodal and Matrix Analysis of Communication Patterns in Small Groups”. In Proceedings of the Computer Support for Collaborative Learning (CSCL) 1999 Conference, C. Hoadley & J. Roschelle (Eds) Dec. 12 – 15, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, Mahwah, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.