What´s Yours Is Mine: the Ethics of News Aggregation

The case explains a situation, which is one of the most important problems during our days: intellectual property rights V´s freedom of information

The code of ethics is helpful in evaluating this case because is really hard establish what are the limits of intellectual property. The Society of Professional Journalists´ code of conduct states ¨Never plagiarize¨ and the Associated Press code warns:

“An AP staffer who reports and writes a story must use original content, language and phrasing. We do not plagiarize, meaning that we do not take the work of others and pass it off as our own”.

However, aggregation, like is states in the book, is not a black and white issues.  The same statement of Associated Press about their News Values and principals, that argues that their staff must use original content also said:

“  But in some respects, AP staffers must deal with gray areas. It is common for an AP staffer to include in his or her work passages from a previous AP story by another writer – generally background, or boilerplate. This is acceptable if the passages are short. Regardless, the reporter writing the story is responsible for the factual and contextual accuracy of the material. Also, the AP often has the right to use material from its members and subscribers; we sometimes take the work of newspapers, broadcasters and other outlets, rewrite it and transmit it without credit”.

The same code is warning that writers are going to face gray areas. Since that statement, its seem like every members of AP could face a ethic dilemma about use content of other, that mean aggregation. So, its no code its not effective in clarify when is OK to use content from others writers. 

 AP NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES

In this case I would use the ethical perspective of David Rose, Pluralistic Theory of Value. He argues that “there is often more than one ethical value simultaneously for a preeminence in the process of our ethical decision making”.

That provide another option to the writers about use another material, to complete one article, or not.

They could think about any case, and asks themselves something like, Is It going to be really relevant this aggregation for the story? ,  for the right of the public to be inform. One value, be accuracy, could be more important than other, We do not plagiarize.

We know that governments has the responsibility to make laws able to protect the intellectual property of citizen, however it should guarantee to all citizens the freedom access to the information.

Internet´s development has facilitated access to information. Everyday thousands of books, articles, songs, essays, investigations, opinions are on hands of a countless of people, around the world. But also, it´s true that Internet has made easier to break the law , such as works’ plagiarism, illegal sell and reproduction.

The ethical dilemma arises because, it´s almost impossible to establish strong rules to guard the intellectual property, without affecting our free access to the information. The State is trying to create regulations as Stop Online Privacy Act, SOPA, but is in this moment, when the ethical dilemma intensifies, because despite SOPA raises expand efforts to decrease illegal reproduction of the works on Internet, It affect directly our rights.

In Brief, it´s clear that authors need protection over their works, however as soon as government start to punish or control work´s traffic on Internet, also will be easier to censorship. I would leave to right to decode whether or not use aggregation to the writers, but always evaluating any case, and attributing the aggregation to the original source.