Superheroes & Villains: Diary of a Mad Ethics Professor
by Christopher Robichaud on October 3, 2007 in Diary of a Mad Ethics Professor
Dear Professor,
Normally I buy all my course packets for my classes, but one of my packets this semester has the hefty price tag of $275 (it weighs even heavier). I’m on a limited budget and recently had a baby, and a couple friends who are in the class suggested that we split the cost and photocopy the packet, even though it seems as though this is against copyright rules (and apparently frowned upon by the school). Is it wrong for me to engage in this activity even though it’s a means to education that will enable me to be a better public servant?
Sincerely,
CMO junkie
Dear CMO Junkie,
First off, congrats on your baby! I completely understand how a tight budget and new re-sponsibilities can lead you to wonder whether the classic cost-splitting CMO scheme is morally permissible. But with that said, I’d say it’s wrong for you to engage in it. That’s not simply because it’s illegal, assuming it is. Socrates might’ve thought we have a prima facie moral obligation to obey the law, but I don’t buy it (look where it got him!).
The reasons for my position on this matter involve the following thoughts. The copyright laws in this case are meant to reflect the intellectual property rights of the authors of the papers in the course packets. I’ll support the idea that there are such rights by adopting the libertarian stance that, morally-speaking, the authors of those papers are permitted to distribute their work as they so choose. In short: it’s their property, and if they want to sell their work to journals and presses that will go on to charge universities like KSG in order for it to distribute their work to individual students, it’s morally permissible for them to do so. These authors are not morally obligated, in other words, to make their work available free of charge to struggling students. They can if they’d like to, of course, but they aren’t morally required to.
Now these intellectual property rights can reasonably be overridden under the right cir-cumstances. Those circumstances haven’t arisen, however. You point out that in the past, you’ve always bought your course packets. That’s good, but irrelevant to the moral con-siderations in this case. No one thinks, I take it, that the fact that I haven’t stolen cars in the past counts in favor of the moral permissibility of me stealing this car here and now. And importantly, other options have been ignored. Here’s one. You and a few friends pool your money and buy a course packet together. Then you share it. You don’t photo-copy it. You simply share it. One reads the article. Then the other, etc. Nothing wrong with that. Or you visit the library, which should provide a copy of the course packet and/or the books/journals that the relevant papers are in. Granted these options aren’t as convenient as having your own copy, but then, if you want that convenience, you ought, morally, to pay for it.
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