Legal & Ethical Issues for Members of the Lending Library

Our Lending Library, hereafter known as (LL) offers educational and disability-specific software programs to members. To ensure the LL’s present and future success, all LL members must understand the legal and ethical issues concerning copyright laws.

There are three basic types of programs:

Public Domain/Freeware: These are computer programs that may be freely copied and distributed by anyone. There are many public domain titles available.

Shareware: This refers to programs that may legally be copied for free. If a decision is made to keep a shareware program that has been copied, the author must be paid the price of the program. Shareware is a simple, inexpensive way to try before buying, BUT it only works as long as everyone follows the rules and pays for programs they keep.

Retail/Commercial: This is software produced by an individual or group that is sold for profit. The software may not be freely distributed because it has copyright protections similar to a book or videotape.

The software in the LL is Retail/Commercial, which means it is illegal to permanently copy software from our library for one’s own use.

The software must be removed from the system hard drive prior to its return to the LL.

How serious is breaking copyright law?

Copyright infringement is very serious for both legal and ethical reasons. Pirating software is punishable by law. According to the Software & Information Industry Association, copiers are liable for the resulting copyright infringement whether or not they knew their conduct violated federal law. Penalties include liability for damages suffered by the copyright owner plus any profits of the infringer that are attributed to the copying. Copyright infringement is also a federal crime with penalties and jail terms possible. If copyright law is broken, users may face these consequences.

Breaking copyright law is very serious and Alt+Shift does not condone copyright infringement. For additional information contact the Software & Information Industry Association, 1090 Vermont Avenue NW Sixth Floor, Washington, DC 20005-4095, (p) 202-289-7442 or www.siia.net.

Removal of software from the system hard drive:

Many programs that require installation on a hard drive also have an uninstall option to remove the software. Please check the manual thoroughly for this option. In cases where there is not an un-install or remove option, you must take some additional steps to remove the software from your hard drive.

• If the software is Windows based, you need to use an uninstall program. There are retail clean-up programs available.
• If the software is for a Macintosh system, then drag the folder to the Trash and empty the Trash.

Please call the Alt+Shift Lending Library at 517-908-3916 for further questions about this process.