Is it Ethical to Use P2P Software?

When we start talking about ethics and New Media two things come to mind. P2p file sharing and open source programs. Both can be seen in negative and positive light which also seems to make it seem as if P2p and open source are good and bad. Which one is it though? Are we stealing money from the big name producers like Microsoft and Tim McGraw? I do not believe that it is unethical to use P2p and open source programs.

When you think of P2p what first comes to mind? Downloading illegal songs and programs? While that may be at the back of my mind the first thing for me would be a free source of resources for anything you ever needed to do. An excerpt from MIC Student Editorial on file-Sharing Ethicsshows how P2p has become so prevalent "If you click on the copyright and distribution information at the bottom of the piece, you find eight paragraphs of "may be distributed" and "may not be distributed" conditions. Here lies a deeper reality than the editorial's argument: "may not be distributed" is always thwarted by "can be distributed." When the technical possibility is easy and global, enforcement of "may not" is impossible, and that simple fact changes ethics. Or, I should say, it removes ethics. The marketplace lacks morals; it is as dumb as a falling object in a gravity field, acquiring its desires in the most efficient possible ways. You might as well say "may not fall" to a brick dropped from a window, or suggest that the brick reconsider the ethics of hitting someone below." If a road was posted at 35 mph in a normal 55 mph area and was not enforced by the cops, how many people would really go 35 mph? I see P2p with the lack of enforcement making people see it as ethical and not wrong.

Well to really understand the ethics of P2p we need a definition. "Ethics is the branch of axiology - one of the four major branches of philosophy, alongside metaphysics, epistemology, and logic - which attempts to understand the nature of morality; to define that which is right from that which is wrong. The Western tradition of ethics is sometimes called moral philosophy." This definition is from Wikipedia.org. So ethics defines the right from the wrong in all instances? Well who says that the users of the P2p software are on the wrong side of the ethics? Let's use Bill Gates for an example. If I were to download Windows XP from a P2p client and install it on my computer am I doing something wrong? Well otherwise I would not be able to afford the software because of my financial situation. I just "pirated" software from the richest man in the world who happens to run a monopoly. Is it ethical for him to run a monopoly and charge unreasonable prices for his software? Well from my point of view I believe that he is the one on the unethical side of the spectrum.

Are P2p applications built to steal? As said in P2P apps: Built to steal? Meg says... "My feeling is that if Kazaa is designed to steal software, music, movies, and pornographic images, the people behind it are doing a crappy job. The software does little more than find files based on their metadata and some search terms, the barest of functionality needed to locate files. I should have the option of clicking on a song to download the rest of the songs from the album. I should be able to d/l the top 20 Billboard singles as a collection or separately without having to search for each one manually. A list of new releases by artists I've d/led before? How about a list of Amazon's best sellers? The top 10 movies in America in DivX format?" I think that P2P would be called file stealing if it was intended for stealing. But who can say what is stealing on the internet. This Quote from The Apple Lisa - GOO-ee for Everybody "Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers, visited PARC in 1979 (after buying Xerox stock) and was impressed by the "Alto", the first computer ever with a graphical user interface. Several PARC engineers were later hired by Apple and worked on the Apple Lisa and Macintosh. The Apple research team contributed much in the way of originality in their first GUI computers, and work had already begun on the Lisa before Jobs visited PARC. Jobs was definitely inspired and influenced from the technology he saw at PARC, however, enough for Bill Gates to later defend Microsoft against an Apple's lawsuit over Windows 1.0 having too much of the "look and feel" of a Apple MacIntosh. Gates' claim being, "hey, we both got it from Xerox." The lawsuit ended when Gates finally agreed that Microsoft would not use MacIntosh technology in Windows 1.0, but the use of that technology in future versions of Windows was left open. With that agreement, Apple lost its exclusive rights to certain key design elements." This shows that Bill Gates STOLE to start his monopoly as it is today! So it is okay for him to steal but it is totally wrong when we steal from him.

P2P built to share but turned into a "stealing machine." Is it that people have lost their morals or is it that society has deemed it okay to download illegal software and songs? Maybe it was such the rage because you didn't have to leave the convenience of your home to get your favorite songs. Now that iTunes and other related programs have been released many more have started to download their favorite songs legally. Is that the nudge we needed? Or is it that we have made such a separation between rich and middle class that legal is not affordable anymore? I think that if prices of programs were to drop then piracy would drop as long as they were accessible online so it was very convenient.

"And then there's the whole moral issue of file-sharing. The reactionaries say it is immoral, but that claim is hard to make to the general public. To the public, they don't see anything wrong with sharing someone else's work as long as you don't expect money in return. To the general public, file sharing (a.k.a. peer-to-peer [p2p] networking) equates to book sharing ... or photocopying a magazine article you liked and giving the photocopies to friends." Article from The P2P Revolution. This shows how society sees P2P. What happened to the old days where if you liked an article in a local newspaper and just copied it and gave it to a friend to read? I don't remember the newspaper companies trying to sue you because you copied their product and gave it to someone for free. "You need to understand three points. 98% of humanity:-

a) Do not generally give one second's breath to thinking about morality *at all* unless they are faced with a life-threatening situation, i.e., their mortality and the associated guilt that can go with it,
b) Are generally extremely unintelligent, whether inherently or voluntarily, and are willing to do virtually anything in order to avoid having to engage in mental effort of any kind, and
c) Spend most of their time persuing some form of carnal (whether food, sex, or violence) or material (money, which leads back to the former) gratification." - Excerpt fromKicking it up a notch: Microsoft's open source message gains subtlety

What about people who want software or songs from another country that does not release their items in the US? Is this wrong to download their products? As of today there is a very fine line that many people walk not knowing what side they are on until they get a letter in the mail from the RIAA that tells them they are being sued. I think before this goes any further they need to learn to take care of issues in society a little more pressing than file sharing.

Open source programs are totally free? Is this true? I see them as taking away from their big name counterparts that everyone pays big bucks for. I do not like to use open source because it does not get the professional results that the big name software does all the time. From the human standpoint of morality I do see it as more moral to use open source software instead of downloading illegal software.

It is quite the dog eat dog world out there and it seems that morals and ethics are non existent out there. Maybe New Media will be the death of monopolies and will bring the ethics and morals back to reality. I see P2P and as the resources for the New Media artists and those who are less fortunate to have the money to afford this type of software and resources. If only the human mind could think about more than itself for a few seconds. P2P shows how selfish the human mind is.

Bibliography

MIT Student Editorial on File-Sharing Ethics, (http://p2p.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000400064786), 11/21/05

Definition of Ethics, (www.wikipedia.org), 11/21/05

P2P apps: built to steal?, (http://www.kottke.org/02/10/p2p-apps-built-to-steal), 11/21/05

The History of the Graphical User Interface or GUI - The Apple Lisa, (http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa043099.htm), 11/21/05

THE P2P REVOLUTION, (http://www.filehash.com/p2p2), 11/21/05

Kicking it up a notch: Microsoft's open source message gains subtly, (http://trends.newsforge.com/comments.pl?sid=45753&cid=110014), 11/21/05