The Consumer Ethics of Counterfeiting, Piracy, and File Sharing
O.C. Ferrell: Bill Daniels Professor of Business Ethics, Creative Enterprise Scholar, University of New Mexico
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Linda Ferrell: Bill Daniels Professor of Business Ethics, Albert & Mary Jane Black Professor of Economic Development, University of New Mexico
The global issues related to intellectual property violations has made it difficult for patent and copyright owners to protect their products in various countries. Counterfeiting, piracy and file sharing activities are as varied as the countries in which they occur. Often the limited legal consequences for consumers knowingly engaging in these activities provides the opportunity to take advantage of buying or obtaining software, music, books, brand names, and other intellectual property in violation of existing laws. A focus on the ethical dimensions of intellectual property violations should help to understand the role of social influences and other reasons that consumers engage in misconduct. The consumer behavior of unethical and illegal decision making involves values, attitudes and decision processes that, when understood, could lead to the potential prevention of such misconduct. We will explore the ethical/unethical decision making of consumers and the reasons they engage in misconduct. We will also discuss ways to influence consumer behavior to assist organizations in protecting their intellectual property.
The Challenge of Policy Choice: How to Distinguish the (Black) Sheep from the Wolves?
Professor Dr Annette Kur: Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law, Germany
It is a truism that law is not worth much if it remains in the book. Efficient enforcement is therefore an essential element of IP protection. However, it is also true that infringement, when it occurs in normal business, is “part of the game”, and to some extent may even be inevitable. Such infringements do not distort the inherent balance of substantive IP law to any larger extent than when right-holders overstate their claims. Contrary to that, hard-core counterfeiting and piracy pose a much higher threat for economy as well as for public health and safety. However, while there is wide consensus that the distinction exists, there is no clear and generally accepted formula according to which the phenomena could be separated. Due to lack of clear dividing lines, enforcement legislation regularly proceeds from a comprehensive approach (“one size fits all”). If that approach is strongly influenced by the political urge to combat serious counterfeiting and piracy, this may lead to imbalanced legislation, which might prove counterproductive: while harsher sanctions will hardly deter hard-core criminals, over-reactions vis-à-vis ‘ordinary’ infringers may foster a hostile climate against intellectual property protection in general. Enforcement legislation must therefore conceive of proportionate and efficient measures that rise to the challenge, without misplacing the accent and thereby risking damage for the system as a whole.
