Discussion 2

Three  Case  Studies  of  Ethics  in  Technical  Communication   Directions:  Read  all  three  cases,  then  work  with  your  group  to  determine  the  ethical  course  of   action  to  take  in  each  scenario.  Be  prepared  to  defend  your  position  to  the  rest  of  the  class.    

Case  #1   You  work  in  the  document  design  department  of  a  large  corporation.  Traditionally,  your   department  has  made  it  a  point  of  pride  to  produce  dramatic  covers  for  the  company's  annual   report.  One  of  your  coworkers  finds  a  reproduction  of  a  famous  photograph  in  a  popular  magazine   and  the  image  would  be  perfect  for  the  theme  of  this  year's  annual  report  with  some  cutting,   pasting,  and  a  few  other  modifications.  

Since  the  photograph  is  famous,  since  you’re  going  to  use  only  part  of  the  image,  and  since  you’re   going  to  modify  the  image  in  order  to  produce  something  which  is  essentially  a  new  image,  should   you  go  ahead  and  scan  it?  Or  do  you  first  need  to  seek  permission  to  use  it?  If  you  need  permission,   who  do  you  ask:  the  magazine?  the  publishing  house  that  sells  the  reproduction?  the  photographer   who  originally  took  the  picture?    

Case  #2   You’ve  been  hired  to  do  some  desktop  publishing  work  for  a  large  consulting  firm.  The  office   manager  bought  you  a  new  computer  system  to  use,  but  the  system  came  with  a  new  software   package  that  is  incompatible  with  the  old  version  of  the  software  used  by  the  rest  of  the  office.  As  a   result,  you  can't  share  files  with  coworkers  and  do  your  job  effectively.  Fortunately,  however,  the   office  still  has  the  installation  disks  for  the  old  version  of  the  software,  and  the  office  manager  tells   you  that,  since  these  disks  were  purchased  by  the  company,  you  can  install  the  old  software  on  your   system.    

Should  you  go  ahead  and  copy  the  software  since  the  office  has  already  paid  for  it?  

Case  #3   You're  doing  research  on  an  article  about  usability  testing.  As  part  of  your  research,  you  join  an   electronic  discussion  group  on  the  Internet  where  people  doing  human  factors  research  exchange   email  messages  about  their  works-­‐in-­‐progress.  As  you're  writing  your  article,  someone  posts  an   email  message  to  the  group  describing  the  results  of  her  unpublished  research  project.  These   results  are  central  to  your  article's  thesis  and  force  you  to  completely  revise  your  thinking  about   the  subject.  Since  these  results  haven't  been  published  elsewhere,  you  wish  to  quote  the  email   message  in  your  article.  

Can  you  legally  and  ethically  quote  from  an  email  message?  Indeed,  are  you  obligated  to  cite  the   message  since  it  had  such  a  profound  impact  on  your  own  thinking?  If  so,  does  anyone  own  the   copyright  on  the  message?  Do  you  need  to  seek  the  author’s  permission?  Or,  since  the  message  was   electronically  “published”  by  the  discussion  group,  do  you  need  to  have  the  permission  of  the   person(s)  who  created  and  operated  the  discussion  group  or  the  university  or  company  which   owns  the  computer  that  hosts  the  group?  

 

(Note:  All  cases  adapted  from  Tharon  W.  Howard,  “Who  ‘Owns’  Electronic  Texts,”  1996.)