Computer Ethics, Fall 2012

Corboy Law 423; Thursdays, 4:15-6:45
Week 1

Goals:
Example: is file-sharing stealing, if nobody lost anything?

Overview of some issues:
         

Week 1 Readings

Read all of chapter 1 and the first three sections of chapter 4, especially:
    kill switches in 1.2.1
    cellphone case-study in 1.2.2
    What is ethics? 1.4.1
    What is intellectual property?: §4.1.1


  
Michael Eisner's June 2000 statement to Congress (edited, from Halbert & Ingulli 2004).


1.4.2: ethical theories
There are two great (classes of) ethical theories:
    1. Deontological: rules-based; we have fundamental duties we owe others
    2. Utilitarian: consequences-based; we establish moral rules for their social utility
    3. Relativism: superficially appealing, but ultimately unsatisfactory

Midterm, final exam [?], 3 papers

Plagiarism rules: be sure ALL quotations are marked as such, and also cited.

When you write, be sure you organize your points clearly and address the question. Grammar and style count for MUCH less!


Case study 1

In the previous edition of Baase, there was a case study on the introduction of ATM banking machines and cell phones. Here were some potential consequences of ATMs that people were once worried about:
Walter Wriston was CEO of CitiBank in the 1970's when ATMs were then widely deployed in New York City. Wriston was at one point credited with the realization that many if not most New Yorkers actually preferred ATMs to using human tellers; they did not particularly like that form of human contact. [source: newspaper article I read long ago]

Furthermore, ATMs are available when it's convenient for you; many banks still have very limited late hours.

As for unemployment, Baase had data that tell a different story:
    1983   480,000
    1993   301,000    ( this drop was due in part to ATMs)
    2006   600,000   Wow!

As for the electronic trail, that exists equally for teller transactions. If you live in a small town, the ATM is likely to offer greater privacy.

One proposal for addressing ATM crime is to give patrons a "duress PIN", eg their regular PIN backwards. The main reason this has never been implemented is that there appears to be little need for it.

Case study 2

Regarding cellphones, here is a list of issues from Baase 4§1.2.1
  1. more outdoor risk-taking
  2. talking while driving
  3. texting while driving
  4. courtesy & rudeness (see the "I've got pressure" sidebar on p 13)
  5. cameras, lack of awareness of them, and privacy (again, see the "I've got pressure" sidebar)
  6. status-symbol division (once this was seen as a past issue. Then the iPhone came along)
  7. organizing flash mobs
  8. location tracking
  9. setting off IEDs
What do you think of Baase's quote that "more folks have access to a cellphone than to a toilet"? [Diamandis & Kotler]

What about the issues above? Which of them can be addressed (I didn't say "fixed") through technology? Through other means?

Case study 3

As a technology-related issue that isn't yet considered computer technology, how do you feel about genetically modified food? Does it worry you? Do you think it should be banned? Labeled?

Case study 4

How do you feel about Apple or Google going into your phone and rifling about, deleting stuff? How about Amazon going into your kindle? Microsoft going into your laptop?

On a (vaguely) related note, Microsoft has some pretty heavy-handed content regulations for storage in MS SkyDrive. They ban nudity (not just "pornography") and vulgarity (which would arguably include any use of profanity). If you break the rules, you may lose access to your email account (or even to your MS-Office access subscription), not just to your data. If you try to keep your bad data on your own hard drive, but accidentally sync, or even if you back up to SkyDrive, there you go.

(More at http://www.cnet.com/8301-33642_1-57496666/skydrive-content-restrictions-among-the-toughest-in-the-cloud)

Case study 5

What about AI? Does this represent thinking? Might it in the future? Should people be allowed to make "wrongful disconnection" claims if someone damages or destroys an AI "pet"?




§1.3: Themes

Why study computer ethics?

1. An opportunity to look at old problems in new setting.

Do old analogies apply? Classic case: copyright. Note that in some sense computing provides a testbed for classical ethics: computing supplies many examples of classical ethical dilemmas in a new context.

2. New rules required as we adapt to new technology. Examples:
3. Varied sources of solutions to new problems. Example: cell phone case study, Section 1.2. Cell phones led to:
4. Global scope of the Internet: good and bad
5. Tradeoffs
    between privacy and convenience. True of computers, true of door locks.
   
6. Perfection is not one of the options

7. Differences between ethical choices and the law

Computers are a form of technology. Why do we talk about "computer ethics" but not "automobile ethics" or "aircraft ethics"? (Note that we do talk about medical ethics and biotechnology ethics.)

Ethics
Some people like to distinguish between ethics and morals by saying morals are what we do; ethics is the study of morality, or how we reason about what we do.

Descriptive ethics: what do people actually do
        compare sociology, etc

Normative ethics, or PREscriptive ethics: what SHOULD we do?

Are we going to figure out right and wrong here? No. But we will figure out how to:
Another issue with normative ethics is the distinction between what we should do and what other people should do.

Law

What are laws for?

For the last one, note that the goal is to encourage investment. Possibly at the expense of justice! (Think about that one; is that a bad thing?)

(Some people have argued that software patent law fails to provide a "consistent basis for economic activity", in that patent lawsuits are unpredictable to an unusual degree. Other people disagree.)

Sometimes lobbying isn't driven by money. Consider the controversial Illinois anti-eavesdropping law, which according to a Chicago Reader article at http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/chris-drew-art-peddling-law-arrest-illinois-eavesdropping-act-aclu/Content?oid=2448923
may have been intended to ban the recording of police:

And thanks to a 1994 amendment that makes it nearly unique in the nation, [the eavedropping law] doesn't distinguish between public and private conversations....

Part of a 1994 omnibus crime bill sponsored by former Chicago police detective Wally Dudycz, then a northwest side state senator, the amendment was a pointed response to a 1986 case (People v. Beardsley) in which the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that what a cop says during a traffic stop isn't private and therefore can be recorded for use as evidence.

The Seventh Circuit has ruled (May 9, 2012) that the law "likely violates" the First Amendment, and has ordered Cook County to stop enforcing it. See here. Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit, who has spoken in defense of the law, was apparently not on the panel that issued the ruling. The case continues.

CRIMINAL v CIVIL law

What the rules are:
    contracts
    torts (non-contractual obligations)
    criminal law

What is "illegal"? Are copyright violations "illegal"? Usually, something is "illegal" if it involves a violation of criminal law. Defamation (libel/slander), for example, is seldom referred to as "illegal", despite the potential legal consequences. ("illegal" = expressly against the law, "unlawful" = not authorized by law, but implicitly not in compliance)

Actually, as we discuss copyrights, it is worth noting that essentially all infringement is a civil matter, not a crime against the state (ie not "illegal").

legal safeguards for you or your organization
economic consequences of established rules
the "rule of law"

how the law is actually being interpreted

Law and the courts
    Federal:
            Supreme court
            Circuit courts
            District courts

    State courts:
       Note the New York State "Supreme" courts are the ones to hear parking infractions.
    
Judges write opinions, which carry significant weight with other judges.

One of the themes of this course is watching how judges and legislators grapple with complex social changes wrought via technology. Sometimes it seems that the courts, at least, are getting better at this, decade by decade. However, note the following:

Wednesday, January 18, 2012: Wikipedia shut down entirely, and Google made their logo go dark, in protest of the proposed SOPA/PIPA laws. These laws have since gone nowhere.

SOPA and PIPA represent an astonishing degree of technological cluelessness. More below.

File Sharing

First, a clarification: by "file-sharing" I mean the free exchange of .mp3 files (and now video files) on the internet, typically peer-to-peer (because big servers are subject to lawsuits, unless they are offshore). The person uploading the music does not receive compensation, either directly or through advertising. Some file-sharing software is advertising-supported, but that's a separate issue.

recent events on the filesharing front:

Wednesday, January 18, 2012:  SOPA/PIPA protest shutdown

Thursday, January 19, 2012: the FBI shut down megaupload.com, a massive file-sharing site; see http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/19/feds-shut-down-file-sharing-website. However, megadownload.net is still here.

What do you think of these sites?

As for SOPA and PIPA, here are a few highlights (mostly from SOPA):
Google settled sometime in 2011 with the US Dept of Justice for allowing "Canadian pharmacies" to advertise through Google. These sites sold legitimate prescription drugs to Americans at reduced rates, but this turns out to be illegal in the US. However, Google may still list such sites in their search results.

What do you think of laws like PIPA/SOPA? They clearly have the potential to have drastic affects on our ability to upload material or to blog.


If seven million people are stealing, they're not stealing.
      - David Post (Temple Univ Law School) [Sometime around 2000?]
   
What did Dr Post mean by that?


Questions about what you download (from better to worse?)
  1. Is it ok to listen to the radio?
  2. Is it ok to play the radio at a party?
  3. Is it ok to record off the radio? What about TV?
  4. What about downloading lyrics?
  5. What if I already own the CD? (either lyrics or entire tracks)
  6. Is it ok to download music files off the internet?
Most people would probably be ok with all but #6 here. Note that #2 might be construed as illegal if the party were in any way not a "private home affair". One court did rule against #5, in a lawsuit against mp3.com, but one may suspect the court did not really believe mp3.com was properly checking if patrons already owned the CD.

Some of the first early popular sites on the internet were song-lyric repositories. Sometime in the late 90's most of the originals apparently got cease-and-desist letters; one industry-supported site would display the lyrics but wouldn't let you copy or save them, and the display would vanish after ~20 seconds. (Had the developers not been aware of screen-capture?)


Why wasn't the illegal copying of books through photocopying a major issue?

Why wasn't the illegal production of audio cassette tapes (from LPs, radio broadcasts, and live concerts) a major issue?



Now let's expand the previous list to focus on file sharing in the digital-music context.
  1. Is it ok to borrow a friend's physical CD?
  2. Is it ok to borrow a non-DRM digital track from a friend?
  3. Is it ok to give a digital copy of a track to a friend?
  4. If one track is ok, what about 20 tracks (a traditional CD's worth)? What about 100 tracks?
  5. Is it ok to let your friend pay you something for the privilege?
  6. Is it ok if you just met your friend 30 seconds ago, for the sole purpose of buying 100 MB of music?

Many people have at least some concerns with #3, though it somewhat depends on who you mean by "friend" (cf #6).

How is online file-sharing different here? Numbers 5 and 6 don't really apply, though what would you say if an online file-sharing service required you to pay the uploading contributors? What if the cloudsharing service charged extra for accounts that got usable bandwidth (so free filesharing was possible, but impractical)? How different would the profit motive make things?

One classic slippery-slope argument is the Bart & Fat Tony d'Amico scene in Simpsons 8F03, written by John Swartzwelder.

 At work, Fat Tony gives Bart a present, in gratitude for his help with the distribution of smuggled cigarettes.
   
Bart: Uh, say, are you guys crooks?
Tony: Bart, um, is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family?
Bart: No.
Tony: Well, suppose you got a large starving family.  Is it wrong to steal a truckload of bread to feed them?
Bart: Uh uh.
Tony: And, what if your family don't like bread?  They like... cigarettes?
Bart: I guess that's okay.
Tony: Now, what if instead of giving them away, you sold them at a price that was practically giving them away.  Would that be a crime, Bart?
Bart: Hell, no!
Tony: Enjoy your gift.

(Is it legal for me to play this in class?)

One way to look at these slippery slopes is to be very wary of "incremental" arguments in ethics. On the other hand, another view (which we'll come to) is that the real issue with copyright is preserving the musician's ability to earn money, and (perhaps) therefore anything that doesn't actually interfere with that is ok. Which of the items on the list might interfere with the musician's income?


Conflict:

Is downloading the same as theft? DISCUSSION

Software-copying model: people who illegally copy software often would never buy it; they're just "collecting". No sale is lost in these cases.

Lost sales: if you build a better mousetrap, my mousetrap business may lose sales. Lost sales -- or other harm -- is NOT necessarily wrong!!

Keep this "harm is not wrong" idea in mind.

Here's a related issue: how much should netflix and hulu charge a month for streaming?


How does shifting from music filesharing (arguably a legitimate fan response, and musicians may make even more money from concerts) to movie filesharing change things?

How the music and movie industries sees it

Make no mistake; many musicians and essentially everyone in the music industry above the level of musicians sees music as a business, and virtually everyone in the movie industry sees it that way. Many people go into music with the express hope of becoming wealthy. While hard data is difficult to come by, I suspect that a majority of those in the music industry believe they have a "natural right" to the music-related content they create.

Bear in mind that there are many people who have had some idea and feel some "ownership rights" to their idea. Many people, for example, feel that they are "entitled" to profit from a business idea they had, or at least are entitled not to have someone else profit off their idea by copying it. Example: the Winklevoss twins and Facebook. Many of these people are simply engaging in wishful thinking.

"Intellectual Property"

[Why am I using quotation marks here?]

Can you own an idea?

What is the LEGAL basis for music protection? Copyright.

Copyright is sometimes referred to as a form of "Intellectual Property" (along with patent rights and some trademark and trade-secret rights). Is there such a thing as "Intellectual Property"?

     Intellectual property is the work-product of the human mind.  [Halbert & Ingulli, CyberEthics, 2004]
        
How about
        
        IDEAS are the work-product of the human mind
        
Can ideas (including music) be property?

What is property? (Legal and social definitions)

"the right of use, control, and disposition" (topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/real_property)
the "expectation ... of being able to draw such or such an advantage from the thing" in question [Jeremy Bentham, quoted in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_law]

Three classes of property:      
Note that "intellectual property" can certainly meet Bentham's standard of "expectation... of being able to draw .. an advantage".
       
Traditionally, "real property" is considered much more tangible. Nobody can walk off with it, for example. However, easements are a form of intangible real property right.

Intellectual property is a form of abstract property. Here are some other forms of abstract property:
Natural law notion of property: you have a right to things you have created with your own labor (eg things you have made). You have a natural right to things you have earned.

Classic proponent: John Locke 1632-1704 (mentioned in Baase p 33)

The natural right to real property (land & buildings) is slightly hazier in theory, but much more solid in practice. The frontier version of the theory was that you have the right to the land you have settled, developed, and farmed; the practice is that you have the right to use your land as you see fit (subject to zoning, water, and environmental laws).

The big question: Do we have natural rights to IDEAS?

Tradition goes both ways. Ideas meet the Lockian test of things created with your own effort, BUT many ideas have also traditionally been regarded as in the "public domain".

One alternative to natural rights is sometimes referred to as "legal rights" or "social rights": rights are assigned by law for a social goal.

Another alternative is the idea of intellectual commons: that ideas are held in common for the benefit of everyone, and that no one has an individual right to an idea.

United States Constitution

US Constitution states (the "copyright clause") (italics added by me)

Article I, Section 8 - Powers of Congress
       
...

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

...