Business Law
Education, Software Piracy, and the Law
This paper is intended as a primer for copyright law in the form of a short story. An elementary school teacher illegitimately copies a piece of software for educational purposes and is discovered. Issues such as the fair use doctrine, copyright law, and cyberlaw are covered. The section provides a realistic legal defense for the fictional situation that drives the paper.
My name is Jason Lee and I teach 6th grade mathematics at Hightstown Middle School in Hightstown, New Jersey. I can't say I particularly enjoy my job, but I still give it my best. I do enjoy spending time with my students, and any occasion when we can all laugh together is a good one. Most students who pass through school here will go on to work at low-income jobs for the rest of their lives. The few students who do seem to have potential for a bright future rarely achieve one.
About five years ago, our school received a number of outdated computers and a small grant to install Internet access from the nearby Armand Hammer Corporation. We converted a classroom downstairs into our first-ever computer laboratory, and the kids couldn't get enough. Very few of them had used a computer before, and of those, few actually owned one. Even today, a lot of kids know what a computer is but lack basic knowledge about its use. Six months ago, one of our outstanding students, Jake Meyers, told me that he wanted to make websites for a living. I was enamored, and decided to help him as best as I could.
We spent our after school hours for the next month learning HTML together. My first first website was about Pokemon cards, one of his many passions. Jake and I made a page for each of his favorite characters, found pictures of them on the Internet, and posted the site to a free server. His next idea was to create original pictures depicting