Is Copy Protection Cracking Ethical? Essay

In the various media industries there are extreme worries concerning unauthorized downloading and copying of their products known as piracy. Piracy of items has been part of commerce for centuries; counterfeiting of currency for example. With the information age the ease at which media can be pirated has caused an explosion of this phenomenon. This practice is an illegal act that is done by individuals for personal use and also for profit. The first do not seem to see the issues caused by this practice such as; the spreading of viruses and lower quality products. We will use Reynolds' Seven-Step Ethical Decision Making Approach for the breakdown of the ethical reality of software piracy.

Hacking is a relatively new technique to describe gaining unauthorized access to a network or computing device. A negative connotation has always been associated with the term. However, in order to catch hackers law enforcement will often reverse engineer the same methods that they use. Hacking has proven to become a major challenge for law enforcement. Device and network intrusions are not easily accomplished. The skills needed to perform a hack requires a succinct knowledge of computers and networking which can take years to fully understand. Society tends to ignore the intricacies of computers and often leave themselves exposed to potential invasions. Since a majority of the public are unaware of protecting themselves, illegal hackers can thrive knowing most people are possible targets.

A Worldwide Problem Software piracy is defined as the illegal copying of software for commercial or personal gain. Software companies have tried many methods to prevent piracy, with varying degrees of success. Several agencies like the Software Publishers Association and the Business Software Alliance have been formed to combat both worldwide and domestic piracy. Software piracy is an unresolved, worldwide problem, costing millions of dollars in lost revenue. Software companies have used many different copy protection schemes. The most annoying form of copy protection is the use of a key disk. This type of copy protection requires the user to insert the original disk every time the program is run. It can be quite

At present, stealing comprises a much broader kinds of activities than it used to; it would be enough to remember shop-lifting or numerous facts of counterfeit product utilization when intellectual property is stolen against copyright-based laws and regulations. Stealing, therefore, is expanding and spreading; moreover, the very notion of what is stealing becomes modified and fuzzy. What are then the instruments that the consequential approach

With an increasingly high number of new technology being invented and innovated so often the issues pertaining to digital piracy are a relatively new phenomenon. Digital piracy is defined as unauthorized copying of digital software, videos, documents, and audio without permission from or compensation to the owner of the copyright (Wolfe & Higgins, 2009). While piracy is against the law, it is something many people will commit without knowing or without an understanding of what they are really doing.

As music and movies are now available almost exclusively in digital formats (CD and DVDs), the ease of copying them to computers is easy. And

These are the people setting the very negative example of computer literate people around the world. They know no morals, or ethical value behind what they do, but to compromise, and cause havoc upon the end user computing world. Hackers fall into two categories: Black Hat and White Hat Hackers. While Black Hat hackers illegally crack into systems for malicious reasons, their White Hat counterparts probe and test for security flaws and IT research (Black Hat/White Hat). The term "hacker" can be explained as a person who enjoys learning the details of a computer system and how to stretch their capabilities beyond a person who learns the bare minimum to use a computer (Palmer). By this definition, a hacker can be anyone who is willing to expand their knowledge with a computer to better benefit themselves, or more importantly, others.

Plagiarism is defined as using others people’s ideas, writings, and quotes without giving credit to the author by citing the material in the paper. Plagiarism can come from copying many things including charts, graphs, text, and music. Even paraphrasing an author’s work without citing it can be considered plagiarism. Plagiarism certainly has been around long before the first research project was assigned. One of the most famous scientists Gregor Mendel had his work plagiarized by another scientist Hugo de Vries in the 19th century.[1] Mendel had come up with breakthroughs in genetics, but no one realized what he had accomplished. Later in the early 1900’s, de Vries

Computer hacking: Is the practice of modifying computer hardware and software to accomplish a goal outside of the creator’s original purpose. People who engage in computer hacking activities are often called hackers. Since the word “hack” has long been used to describe someone who is incompetent at his/her profession, some hackers claim this term is offensive and fails to give appropriate recognition to their skills. The majority of hackers are technology buffs. They are self-motivated and learning about computers is their true passion. ("What Is Computer Hacking?" WiseGEEK. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 July 2013).

How can traditional (or old media) enterprises such as film, television and music overcome the threat of online piracy and file sharing?

Crackers use viruses for their destructive ways. Crackers are people who go out of their way to cause damage to other peoples systems through the use of viruses and direct hacking. Crackers are not hackers. Calling a Cracker a hacker is like comparing a red delicious apple to a golden delicious apple. Hackers are computer enthuses that hack, break in to, systems in order to learn about the system. Hackers as a rule do not do any damage to the system. Crackers are the ones to give hackers bad repartitions. Crackers use virus

The internet is one of the most exciting phenomena to be invented in the world of technology. It was widely received and accepted by all sectors of the society, including the government, and businesses. The communication and media platforms were on the frontline in embracing the new technology. The internet is currently the largest source of music and video content. The availability of high-speed internet connections and a creation of inexpensive and easily distributable digital contents has facilitated to the high number of downloads. This has been attributed with both advantages and disadvantages. The creation of peer-to-peer (P2P) media sharing platforms led to a rise of the controversy surrounding this form of media consumption. This paper discusses the moral issues arising from file sharing. With a worldwide reach, the internet has facilitated massive downloads of copyrighted contents without the knowledge or proper compensation of the rightful author. However, the providing, sharing, or downloading content on these platforms is a violation intellectual property rights known as piracy.

Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of copyrighted material in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it.

Firstly, I was not concerned about the pirated software when I started using computer first. I searched for full version software and got the cracked software. Downloading this software, I started using that software. Suddenly, one day I saw a news on an online newspaper that cracked software may contain virus and may hijack information from anywhere using the internet. After reviewing that news, I started to search for software piracy over the internet and saw so many articles over there.

can become a virtual cash cow. Even selling a pirate cd on the cost of