Introduction to the Case

This paper is based on an ethical dilemma of copyrights violation by a medical school in an underdeveloped country. The company specializes in publishing books for medical students in more than 30 languages. Some of the books are sold worldwide and some are among the best sellers that bring the most revenues to the company for the products and services it provides. Upon taking a tour to a developing country whose GDP is $1000 a year, the company came across the fact the university there is violating copyrights by photocopying one of the best-selling books of the company in the process of educating medical students. Now, when the students were asked it came through that they cannot afford the original books to support their medical studies. The firm now lies in a difficult situation of determining the right course of action in order to deal with copyrights violation under ethical precincts. 

Analysis of Ethical Dilemma

There is a huge tradeoff between the development of doctors from a poor state that is striving towards building itself and the fact that this country is violating serious legal and ethical concerns of copyright on their way towards development. Although the medical books published by this company are too expensive for the students with a disadvantaged background, but an action plan is indeed required to counter the ethical dilemma of copyrights violation on the part of the company. An extensive analysis is required on the basis of theories of ethics to come up with a correct action plan (Sternberg, 2000).  

Types of Stakeholders

Before analyzing under different ethical perspectives, a general idea of types of stakeholders needs to be considered. The business practices are best analyzed by considering the consequences on stakeholders (Lawrence & Weber, 2008). The primary stakeholders in this scenario are the medical students, university and the company itself; while the secondary stakeholders may include the developing country, future hospitals of this country or another and the country’s GDP. Primary stakeholders are the ones who are directly affected by the situation, while the secondary stakeholders are the ones who are indirectly connected to the consequences.

Utilitarian Approach

Under Utilitarian approach, the overall greatest good needs to be assessed in order to analyze how much the present copyrights violation is causing harm to the society and the firm as well (Donaldson & Dunfee, 1999). Since, students from a developing country’s university have a disadvantaged background; it is already very difficult for them to complete their education without paying a lot to the original textbooks from the company. If they are to use the original versions of their books, they may not be able to pursue their careers like they are currently. The copyrights violation is supporting the students of a developing country which desperately needs educated people on board to support for its development. On the other hand, the company is facing serious of deserving revenues from the university. It is a right of the company to gain reward for the products it is supplying. The company is losing a lot of money due to this copyrights violation. Now, looking at this situation from the Utilitarian approach, by allowing the university to photocopy these textbooks, the company is actually maximizing the overall good in the society. A major tradeoff would be the potential revenues of the firm. 

Rights Approach

If the Rights approach is taken for analyzing this situation then there are rights for both the parties. The company has full rights to the property it is selling to the world. When the university has bought the book from the firm, the rights to its originality still remains with the company and it is illegal to form photocopies out of a property whose authority does not belong to the university. Moral values are being questioned here because the coming generation of medicine students is being trained to violate copyrights of someone else’s property. Another perspective comes where the students themselves have all the rights to gain education despite their disadvantaged backgrounds. It would be unfair for the students not being able to support their education because they cannot afford their books to study. 

Fairness Approach

Considering the fairness approach to ethics, it is unjust for the company that its property is being duplicated without any consent from its side. The firm would have never known anything about its copyright violation unless it had visited this university. If a research paper is being published by the students of this university, they would never want their property to be copied by anyone without their permission. Similar respect for the company’s medical textbooks is being expected out of them as well. It is ethically wrong not to give fairness to the company’s personal property. Fairness approach fills the gap between all the stakeholder’s consequences (Phillips, 1997).

Common Goods Approach

Now, the common good approach has its own way of analyzing this situation. It focuses on the overall quality of life that the stakeholders would be getting out of a specific situation (Melé, 2009). Under current circumstances, this copyrights violation improves the quality of life for the university and its students while deteriorates that of the company’s. The main concern lies whether the quality improvement is greater or the deterioration is. If the students are analyzed, their violation causes them to be better able to educate themselves so they can afford their families and support their state.  In this way, overall standard of living in societies of the developing country gets improved. On contrary, the company has displayed its intellect in various languages and provided the medicine industry an assistance to develop further, and in return the company is not getting the right amount of revenues to improve its research and development for societies in the future. This is also a major loss to the company as well as the medicine research. If the two situations are analyzed, on one hand is the future of the students, who want to improve the quality of life for themselves as well as for the generations upcoming, whereas on the other hand lies the company’s potential that is being undermined due to this copyrights violation. According to common goods approach, the students need to access the books in order to create greater good in society. The improvement in quality is greater than the deterioration. 

Virtue Approach

Now finally, according to virtue approach, the basis for human development under copyright violation is entirely wrong under ethical framework. The upcoming generation of the developing country must not be encouraged to use other people’s property without using the correct ethical channel. If the company, even after witnessing this violation, does not take any action is also at fault to have ignored the wrong actions prevailing (Moore, 2005). 

Alternative Action Plan

It has been discussed in “A Discussion on the Legal, Academic and Ethical Concerns under Copyright Fair Use”, copyrights violation should be judged according to its fair usage (Staton, 1993). The university is not violating the company’s copyrights for any commercial purposes, but it intends to educate its students so they could make a better future for themselves. In the current scenario, it is not provided whether the university itself provides the academic course pack themselves, or it only refers to the students and they have to buy the material from outside the university premises. If this information was known, it would have been better to make an accurate decision on the situation. For the time being it has been established that students need to be provided the company’s books but under the condition that they are not violating company’s copyrights. In order to do that, what company can do is offer its books at an approximate price of the photocopied ones and send a notice to stop further copyright violations. If the company feels its costs are greater than the price being offered, this act can come under the company’s CSR portfolio. If the board of directors does not agree to the company’s CSR plan, then the books can be offered at cost prices. Books shall be offered at full price to the university staff, but discounted books shall be provided to students. In any case, copyright violation shall not be allowed by the company. It is better for the company itself to set a social mandate and market it globally so that many other universities like this particular one can grab a few ethical guidelines from this incident (De George, 2011). 

Bibliography

De George, R. T. (2011). Business ethics: Pearson Education India.

Donaldson, T., & Dunfee, T. W. (1999). Ties that bind: A social contracts approach to business ethics: Harvard Business Press.

Lawrence, A. T., & Weber, J. (2008). Business and society: Stakeholders, ethics, public policy: Tata McGraw-Hill Education.

Melé, D. (2009). Integrating personalism into virtue-based business ethics: The personalist and the common good principles. Journal of Business Ethics, 88(1), 227-244. 

Moore, G. (2005). Humanizing business: A modern virtue ethics approach. Business Ethics Quarterly, 15(02), 237-255. 

Phillips, R. A. (1997). Stakeholder theory and a principle of fairness. Business Ethics Quarterly, 7(01), 51-66. 

Staton, R. D. (1993). A Discussion on the Legal, Academic and Ethical Concerns under Copyright Fair Use Journal of Business Ethics, 12(11), 861-868. doi: 10.1007/BF00871667

Sternberg, E. (2000). Just business: Business ethics in action.