While Vladimer and Estragon wait for the decision, they could pass the time reading Lee Gomes in today's free WSJ features on the ethical issues facing computer programmers. Inter alia:

While reality may or may not count for much in law, it counts for something in ethics. The original golden vision of the Internet -- that of a wired global village -- is rapidly being replaced by a dystopia of thefts, scams, phishing and viruses. Programmers and engineers can make choices about whether to make the world better or to make it worse. That means, among other things, being honest about what people might do with the code or the information that gets put out into the world. (Of course, this is a rule that applies to just about any profession.)

But once you say that programmers and others should have a sense of moral responsibility toward the use of their products, you face yet another issue. I listened in recently on a group of carpenters describing their future IT acquisition plans. Nearly all of them, it turned out, were planning to buy laptop computers in the next few months. But in every case, they said, they wanted the machines not for any high-minded purpose but instead to be able to download pirated music and movies.

They may be a small minority of computer users. But the availability of tempting goodies that can be pirated may in fact be driving some computer sales for the home. It's tough to know what the industry should do about it, since digital machines by their very nature allow for copying and transmitting files of all kinds. Still, some honesty would be welcome. I would love to hear a prominent industry executive get up and say, "Yes, it's true, we've benefited from people stealing things. We are not particularly happy about that, and we are trying to figure out what to do about it. But it's reality."

posted by James DeLong @ 8:10 AM | Markets: Business, Investment & Innovation

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