Intellectual Property Battles in a Technological Global Economy: A Just War Analysis
War has broken out in the technological global economy, principally in battles over intellectual property. A particularly fierce aspect of this battle sets people who guard proprietary software against hackers, who want information to be free. The key challenge today is to produce an adequate concep...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
2004
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| In: |
Business ethics quarterly
Year: 2004, Volume: 14, Issue: 4, Pages: 679-693 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | War has broken out in the technological global economy, principally in battles over intellectual property. A particularly fierce aspect of this battle sets people who guard proprietary software against hackers, who want information to be free. The key challenge today is to produce an adequate conceptual lens for seeing what ethically is at stake in this battle. Toward this end, this paper uses the just war tradition to analyze differences between proponents of Free Software and proponents of Open Source Software. This paper’s use of three just war criteria—Just Cause, Right Intention, and Discrimination—illustrates how the just war tradition can raise the level of ethical awareness about the intellectual property wars that continue to rage in the technological global economy.The division between the two [open source and free software] is often bitterly contested, both from inside and outside the communities. The holiest of holy wars are not fought over word processors, operating systems, or compilers. They are all about software licenses.—Joe Barr |
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| ISSN: | 2153-3326 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Business ethics quarterly
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.5840/beq200414440 |