Ethics, Pirated Software and Spyware Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Ethics, Pirated Software and Spyware - Essay Example Benefits include attracting new employees, customers, investors and retaining the employees. Lack of ethical behavior and corporate social responsibility, can damage the firm’s reputation and cause a fall in profits and an eventual business close down. There are several cases that would be eligible for an exception to the law of copyright. One of such situations is when the work is in the public domain. The work in the public domain is not protected by the copyright law and can be used freely by anyone. Another instance is when there is assurance of fair use. This provision allows copyright materials to be used for research and educational purposes (Howe 265). Other occasions may include the use of electronic reserves, libraries and archives, learning management systems like blackboards, and the application of the first scale doctrine. In the first scale doctrine, owners of legally obtained copyright material can dispose of them without the permission of the owner. However, this does not apply to music and software licenses. In music and software licenses, one has to be authorized so as to carry out a transaction. Spyware can be defined as software and applications that take information about the user’s online activities and send them back to their creators. Spyware effects include pop-up ads and browser hijacking. More serious breaches include identity theft and key logging. Each piece of spyware acts differently depending on the information collected. Some gather information for the purpose of marketing while others have malicious intents. Key logging applications monitor the user’s keystrokes and send the information a malicious recipient of the data. In the workplace, keystrokes may be directed to an administrator, who may just be monitoring the companys operations. Keylogging can happen through the email or other internet servers. There are three types of keylogging, hardware keyloggers, software