Digital Rights and Wrongs: Intellectual Property in the Information Age

In 1999, Richard T. De George presented the first in this series of lectures on business ethics and information technology. De George built on his lecture to write a book on the topic. His chapter on intellectual property makes use of some important examples that are even more relevant today, now that corporations have taken to suing individuals—including individuals at this institution—for sharing music over the Internet. It is worth quoting De George at length: Last evening Joe taped the popular movie “Sound of Music” which was playing on one of the TV channels. He was away for the evening and intended to watch the movie when it better fit his schedule. This is both common and legal. He may tape as many programs and movies as he wishes for later viewing. His taped version is his to use, although the same movie is also available for rent or sale at the local video rental store. His friend, Richard, intended to tape the movie but by mistake set his VCR to the wrong channel, and hence taped some other program instead. When he learned this, he asked Joe if he could copy Joe’s tape. He reasoned that since it was legal for him to copy the movie directly from the TV, and he would have