This paper contributes to the computer ethics debate on software ownership protection by examining the ontological, methodological, and ethical problems related to property right infringement that should come prior to any legal discussion. The ontological problem consists in determining precisely what it is for a computer program to be a copy of another one, a largely neglected problem in computer ethics. The methodological problem is defined as the difficulty of deciding whether a given software system is a copy of another (...) system. And the ethical problem corresponds to establishing when a copy constitutes, or does not constitute, a property right infringement. The ontological problem is solved on the logical analysis of abstract machines, and the latter are argued to be the appropriate level of abstraction for software at which the methodological and the ethical problems can be successfully addressed. (shrink)

Copies of artefacts are ubiquitous in our lifeworld and have gained influence on several domains such as economy, culture and science. This development has induced wide-ranging public debates about how to evaluate copying processes regarding their legitimacy, which up to the present day have not reached consensus. This situation calls for an ethics of copying. However, such an ethics has not been elaborated in detail up to the present day. This paper aims at creating foundations of an artefact-related ethics of (...) copying by giving a sketch of an answer to the question of what it means to illegitimately copy an artefact. In order to achieve this, I firstly define “artefact copy” to limit the subject area of such an ethics. Secondly, I answer the question of where to draw the line between legitimate and illegitimate processes of copying. (shrink)