The development of technology, globalization, universal access to information and mostly free flow of data, knowledge and goods - these are some of the facilities we can use nowadays. However, does unrestrained access to someone else's material and intellectual property not entail certain perils?
It turns out that it does! Plagiarism is an unfavorable phenomenon that we have been observing for dozens or even hundreds of years. However, it is nowadays, due to the freedom and ease of access to other people's goods, that it has become a real scourge. Unfortunately, it did not bypass the technology and programming sector either. Counterfeits of genuine equipment, such as electronic boards and components, flood many amateur markets, often providing a cheap alternative to authentic products. Despite the price advantage, you should beware of those plagiarism products for a few very important reasons.
First - poor quality. In order to reduce the selling price and focus on quantity, counterfeit appliances are made of poor-quality materials. This leads to frequent failures, breakdowns and even accidents that may endanger users and the environment. In addition, when buying equipment from unknown sources, we cannot rely on the warranty provided by the original brand. A counterfeiter will not provide us with either compensation or any other form of the possibility of complaint.
Second - illegality. Using someone else's literary works as yours or stealing video materials are a form of plagiarism, which is illegal for obvious reasons. That applies also to intellectual and material property in the field of technology and electronics. Using somebody’s patents and only changing the name or relying on their solutions with little variation and appropriating the results for it, is also illegal. So let's be sure the equipment we choose comes from honest sources and we do not support this sophisticated form of theft.
Third - immorality. It is a very subjective issue, but it also says a lot about the producers and consumers. It is clearly unfair to produce and release counterfeit products to the market for the sole purpose of increasing one’s wealth. But is the conscious use of such products less reprehensible? We should obviously not support that type of trade in any way! It is harmful not only to large companies but mostly to individual innovators and inventors who often devoted a large part of their commitment and engagement, to be later robbed of their achievements by an unethical thief of ideas.
In conclusion, we must realize the scale of plagiarism and the so-called technological cloning. As in other fields of science and art, appropriating someone's performance and signing up for it is illegal and immoral. Let’s bear in mind what we use in terms of legal and moral issues but also of our personal safety.
