Computer Software Heather Allen

Software Copyright Laws It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of the copyright. It is Illegal to distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by scale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. Original Multimedia works are protected by copyright. The Copyright Act's exclusive rights provision gives the developers and publishers the right to control unauthorized exploitation of their works.

Software Piracy Software Piracy is the unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted software. The software license is what tells you how many times you can install the software and any other specified conditions for use. If you make more copies of the software that the license permits, you are pirating and thus breaking the law. Whether you are downloading or distributing pirated software from the internet, or buying a single software and then installing it on multiple computers, you are committing copyright infringement-this is software piracy.

Software Purchasing Agreements The software Purchase Agreement structures a transaction under which a seller conveys to a purchaser all intellectual property ownership rights to a certain software in exchange for a payment and certain sublicensing rights. There are many types of purchasing agreements and it is a good idea to have one if the transaction amount is $500 or more. You can make amendments to the purchase agreement for example if you are the seller of a piece of software that you wrote you can include in the purchase agreement a clause that states you are the only vendor that can make repairs, updates or upgrades to the software. Details you might find outlined in a purchase agreement are the date that the property is actually transferred to the buyer, how the transfer will be done, and also what steps must be taken to undo the transaction.

Acceptable Use Policy It is prohibited to create or intentionally distribute programs (viruses, worms, etc) that are designed to inhibit the functioning or use of the individual or multiple computers. Do not participate in the illegal distribution (including known receipt) of commercially licensed software or copyrighted materials including music and video. Do not plagiarize any document, image, or program. Do not participate in the unauthorized installation of any software, including commercially licensed software, shareware, or freeware.

What can we do? As teachers we can educate our students on the legalities of Software Copyright and let them know how to stay within the legal boundaries. We can also teach our students how to use information found on the internet properly. We can be aware of the information we pull from the internet and make sure that we are not illegally pulling information off the web.