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At 11:47 AM 11/8/00 -0500, Paige Ysteboe wrote:
 >How does fair use apply to computer programs?  If videos can only be used for
 >instructional purposes, does the same standard apply for computer games?  I
 >walked into a classroom today and found several students playing a computer
 >game.  There was one disk, loaded on one computer, so I'm not worried about
 >that part of the copyright question.  I certainly question the validity of
 >playing games during school time (they were finished with their work and were
 >receiving a "reward") but if I'm going to question this teacher's use of time
 >it must be from a copyright standpoint, not from a educational standpoint.
You might approach it by checking to see whether your school has a policy
in place about installing/running software on the computers which isn't
owned by the school. If there isn't such a policy, there probably should
be. If your school is asked to produce invoices and licenses for all the
software running on all the machines, the school would be subject to civil
penalties for use of software without clear licensing documentation. In
addition, does the school have a curriculum committee which evaluates
software purchases for relevance to the classroom? If so, they might want
to carry the water on this. :)

While I am not a lawyer, I don't believe the number of people sitting
around watching the software in use on one machine, if that one copy's
legitimately owned, is actionable.

...brig

--
Brig C. McCoy           | IT Section Manager
Wichita Public Library  | 316 261-8500
223 South Main Street   | Dynix 180
Wichita, KS 67202       | SunOS 5.6 Ultra Enterprise 450

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