CD-ROMS and fair use

[Marsha Stauffer <mstauffe@NOVA.GMI.EDU>]

The licensing agreement which comes with every piece of software you buy
usually states that you may use the program only on a single computer at
any one time without written permission from the company.  Network
versions are often available for multiple use.

In the case of the teacher, he is using the CD-ROM disk only on one
machine at a time.  The catch is the company probably gave permission in
the license to make only archival or back-up copy of the retrieval
software disk that came with the ROM disk.  This is made for the sole
purpose of backing up the software and protecting the purchaser from loss
of the original copy.

If the teacher has one copy of the retrieval software on his computer at
home and one on the computer at school, technically he has broken the
license agreement.

This kind of thing happens a lot, I am sure.  Sometimes all you can do is
to explain copyright to teacher's and hope they comply.  You probably
don't really want to know how many times it is broken daily in a school.
Usually the teacher only intended to enhance his unit of study with
additional materials, not to "rip off" a company by passing around copies
of the software.  This kind of use is probably open to interpretation as
far as the license is concerned and has been a sticky area of copyright
for a long time.

The bottom line is that the teach should read the license agreement that
came with the package.

Marsha Stauffer
Flint Southwestern Academy
Flint, MI