Main Menu 

Slide Shows 

Links 

An elementary english teacher purchases a copy of the Scrabble CD ROM to use in her classroom with 4 I-Macs.  She requested the school purchase this, but she never received a response from the administration.  She plans to use this computer game program as a reinforcement tool.  Is there a fine and how much is the fine? 
 
 

Is it Fair Use? 

The license for Scrabble from Hasboro Interactive states "...You are entitled to use this product for your own use, but you may not sell or transfer reproductions of the software or the manual to other parties in any way.  You may use one copy of the product on a single terminal connected to a single computer.  You may not network the product or otherwise use it on more than one computer or computer at the same time."  The Hasboro Interactive programmers went one step further, if you attempt to run the Scrabble program without the CD-ROM in the PC or Mac, it will crash your computer.  In other words, you can't run the program unless the CD-ROM is in that computer.  It seems reasonable if you have four computers in a classroom used on a rotating basis you can install the load icon on each of the 4 computers and play scrabble on any of the four just one PC game at a time.  The program asks if you want to run it from the CD-ROM menu so that's just as easy and you you will not have to worry, "Did I violate their license?" 

If the teacher finds a way to do a full install, which I have not yet observed, then the teacher will be facing copyright violations for each additional computer beyond only one.  The fines (up to $100,000 per title infringed for a civil violation and up to $250,000 per title infringed for a criminal violation) and loss of teaching license and your job is simply not worth it.  If you have your case thrown out in court, how will you defend your moral character as a teacher? 
 

Keep all of the software licenses you receive in a school license folder and your home license folder.  Print copies of software licenses of all online purchases and downloaded software.  Print and save all email permissions.