The Ethics Coach on Pirating Software, Copycat Designing and More

Article Review #2

“The Ethics Coach on Pirating Software, Copycat Designing and More”

Crystina Fox

BUSN 120 – Jeanise Buck

October 5, 2013

Crystina Fox

BUSN 120 Jeanise Buck

October 5, 2013

Article Review #2: Recognizing Ethical Issues

Since I’ve been taking this class on business ethics, I’ve had the opportunity to add a great deal of interesting reading to my arsenal. In doing so, I discovered an awesome column on entrepreneur.com called “The Ethics Coach”. In this series of articles, The Ethics Coach, or Gael O’Brien, answers real questions from entrepreneurs and business owners, having to do with ethical issues. So I decided that this particular article, “The Ethics Coach on Pirating Software, Copycat Designing and More” would be perfect for this article review. These particular issues are prevalent in both of my lines of work, which are web design and indie nail polish.

In the first question, someone asks Gael about the fact that they’ve spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on expensive software for their electronics engineering business, only to find out that a lot of the consultants and small businesses in their line of work usually pirate at lease one of these programs (O’Brien). This person feels like a “sucker” because he’s spending all of this money on software that he could be, in theory, getting completely free, and feels that the issue of morality in this is very expensive.

Gael’s answer was more or less a way to tell this person to just stop thinking about pirating the software, because it wouldn’t be worth the legal fees and fines he would have to pay after willingly pirating the software to use commercially for his business. Not only would he be looking at fines as high as $150,000 per piece of software (O’Brien), but also the fact that using unlicensed software in a service-oriented business can be unprofessional and reduce credibility (O’Brien). Also, there is no grey area in piracy. After all is said and...