Billy Kavalos

SLM 521

Jona French

Copyright, Piracy, and Ethics

Situation 1

Mr. Jamweimer, the parent of one of our most intellectual students, has paid to download a wonderful computer software program for his little Einstein. Mr. Jamweimer wants "our school" to be the best and sends a copy of the download file to be used by the students on the computers at school. P.S. all of the kids use it and win Nobel prizes in science, literature, physics, chemistry, and playground.

I think this is a big mistake in terms of copyright infringement. The “Fair Use” act seems to have a lot of gray area, but in my opinion, this is illegal. It’s one thing for the school to purchase the software and place it on a server for the students. In some cases, as www.techlearning.com states, the school can track the use of the software and make sure it is not being used more that one time simultaneously. This would make it legal. In the situation described though, the software was purchased and downloaded by a private party for personal use. It is copyright infringement for that person to then turn around and send a copy to the school for the students to use. The software will most likely be used simultaneously in the house of the original downloader and the school, making it illegal. Also, it is piracy if the software is purchased by one person and then copied and given to a separate entity, in this case the school, for additional use. The situation would be slightly different if the school purchased or licensed the software for educational use.

Situation 2

You create a web link to the CBS - David Letterman Web page, the Right to Life and the Right to Choice web pages on your school's home page. Your principal instructs you to remove them from the schools links.

The principle was wrong in instructing the teacher to remove the web links from the schools page. Copyright law allows for the posting of the URL of a webpage along with the title of the page. As www.educationworld.com states, “you should avoid copying and posting links that contain descriptions of the linked sites, although posting links that contain only a URL and the title of the site is generally acceptable.” In this situation, a URL was placed on the school page linking students to the Dave Letterman page and the Right to Life and the Right to Choice WebPages. Since only the URL was placed on the page, this action is protected by the law and no copyright action can be taken against the poster of the links. There is no piracy or stealing of information happening in this case. The poster is not acting in an unethical way by simply placing a link to the WebPages.