A Software Piracy Lesson
It’s easy to cast a dispute between the nation’s largest software makers and the Los Angeles Unified School District as a David and Goliath fight, a battle between ruthless rich companies and impoverished schools struggling to educate children. In truth, it’s even simpler than that, and not nearly as melodramatic. Los Angeles Unified stands accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of software for use in the classroom. Under an agreement brokered between Los Angeles Unified and the Business Software Alliance, the district would agree to pay a $300,000 settlement and replace illegal copies citywide with licensed versions at a cost of nearly $5 million.
It’s a fair deal--but one that underscores the seriousness of software piracy. Worldwide, software piracy costs companies $11.4 billion a year--about $3.1 billion just in North America. By some estimates, 40% of business applications running today are pirated copies. Yet many computer users don’t think twice about the relatively easy process of bootlegging programs, from Microsoft Office to Duke Nukem. The LAUSD settlement should send a clear message that even noble--and traditionally broke--institutions such as school districts are not immune from copyright infringement laws. Nor should they be.
The case stems from a complaint two years ago at the West Valley Occupational Center in Woodland Hills. Investigators for the Business Software Alliance found nearly 1,400 unauthorized copies of programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Word. Total retail value: more than $500,000. Copyright laws allow companies to collect as much as $20,000 for each copied program. Instead, lawyers for the alliance and the school district reached the settlement. The district also agreed to inspect other campuses for illicit software.
Why all the fuss? When purchasing a program, computer users are really buying just the right to use the software. They don’t own the program outright and are bound to the licensing agreement that precedes nearly every software installation. The real cost and value of a piece of software lies not in the box or the CD-ROM, but in the lines of code it holds--the millions of instructions that tell computers what to do. Innovation is the lifeblood of the technology business. But it costs money. Every copy of bootlegged software shifts profits from legitimate software producers and hinders their ability to invest in new applications.
School districts already get a reduced price on software. It’s in the manufacturers’ interest to expose teachers and children to their products. Teachers should resist the temptation to copy programs onto multiple machines and should crack down on students who do. Even in the noble name of education, copyright infringement is still illegal. As one lawyer for the software group pointed out last week, it’s no different from buying a single textbook and making 30 copies.
The school district should quickly launch the complicated task of rooting out illegal copies that may be spread across 62,000 computers and more than 600 schools. It will be incredibly difficult, but that’s no excuse not to get it done. Schools teach children the value of ideas. Replacing illegal software with authorized versions is a strong step toward living up to that goal.
