LAUSD May Settle Lawsuit Over Software

The Los Angeles Unified School District is preparing to pay a computer industry trade group $300,000 to settle allegations that a Woodland Hills school violated federal copyright laws by using nearly 1,400 unlicensed copies of software.

The Board of Education will discuss the proposed settlement behind closed doors today and is scheduled to vote on the matter in open session next Tuesday.

District officials Monday denied any wrongdoing but said they want to avoid a costly court battle with Business Software Alliance, an organization formed by Microsoft Corp., Novell Inc. and other computer industry giants.

District lawyers advised the school board in a memo to settle with the computer group and establish an eight-member unit--at a cost of nearly $1.5 million over three years--to review district practices and ensure the legal use of software.

“They went out in an isolated review and found some instances of unlicensed software,” Richard K. Mason, the district’s general counsel, said of the computer alliance. “Rather than fight these guys in court for five years, we figure let’s fix it now.”

Officials from the software trade group could not be reached for comment late Monday. But the group alleges in documents that the West Valley Occupational Center used unauthorized copies of numerous types of software, including Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop.

It is unclear who tipped off the alliance, but in March 1996, the group notified then-Principal Harlan Barbanell of the problem, asked for an internal investigation and threatened to sue.

“We recently have been advised that West Valley Occupational Center may have installed on its computers more copies of . . . software than it is licensed to use,” the alliance’s attorneys wrote to Barbanell. “Unauthorized duplication of computer software products for . . . use constitutes copyright infringement and is punishable in a federal criminal action . . . by a fine of up to $250,000 and imprisonment for up to five years.”

In a follow-up letter to the district’s lawyers last year, the computer alliance listed 1,399 copies of software that it contended were being used without authorization and asked for more than $562,000 in compensation.

The school district’s policy on software, written in 1990, states that it is illegal to duplicate “copyrighted computer programs.”

Barbanell said that he was aware of the policy, but that while principal he was unaware of any teachers using unauthorized material. “I wouldn’t know if a teacher was bringing unlicensed software to school or not,” he said.

But Barbanell said that his recent reading on the subject suggests that it is allowable for teachers and others to use their own software on the job.

“To the best of my knowledge, if you had Windows 95 in your computer at home, you could bring that to your school or work and use it,” he said. “I believe that is a correct interpretation of federal law, but I’m not an attorney. It’s possible that different software companies have different interpretations.”

Barbanell said that some of the questionable software could have been in place before he arrived in 1993 and that the occupational center also received several donated computers that could have contained unlicensed material.

Barbanell said that he did not know who contacted the computer alliance but that he forwarded the initial correspondence in 1996 to his superiors. The 40-year LAUSD veteran retired from the Woodland Hills school a few months later and now works part time in the district’s partnerships/adopt-a-school office, establishing links between business and schools.

School administrators said they would initiate a general review of the district’s computer practices.

As part of the settlement, the district would have a three-year grace period during which it could delete all unlawful software and buy replacements. A $1-million contingency fund would be established each year to pay for new software.

School board members defended the district’s practices.

“Nobody has taken anything and gone to the local flea market,” said board member David Tokofsky. “Teachers and principals have one core mission, and that is to get materials in students’ hands, like textbooks and technical [support], that will empower them to survive.”