Guidelines
These guidelines are based upon the 1998 Conference on Fair
Use (CONFU) report to congress and have their roots in the original Kastenmeier
Guidelines from 1976. The AD Hoc committee that composed those guidelines
clearly indicated that the guidelines were meant to be a minimum that constituted
educational fair use. The guidelines have not been passed into law and represent
the suggested conditions under which educators can use copyright protected
materials without getting consent of the author or creator of the work. They
are presented here to assist you in making decisions about whether or not
your intended use of certain materials is fair or what is an infringement.
Remember these are guidelines and not hard and fast rules. Use them to guide you
in your selection of educational materials.
Anyone who purchases a computer program has the right to load the program
onto a single computer and to make another copy for archival purposes
only. The license agreement included with the program may give the user
additional rights, therefore, the agreement should be read carefully.
Because a copyright symbol or statement of copyright ownership is not
required by law as a condition of protection, one cannot assume that
the absence of such a notice implies permission to copy the software.
Some types of computer software have less stringent rules on copying.
These types include shareware, freeware and public domain software.
Shareware
This type of software is try-before-you-buy software and may be copied
from bulletin boards or another user's disk. Each program comes with
a license agreement that specifies how long it may be retained before
it must be purchased. Shareware is registered with the author or publisher
by sending a fee that varies according to each shareware program's license
agreement. Registering the program entitles the user to continue using
the program and to receive technical support, printed documentation,
bug fixes and new version updates.
Freeware
This type of software is copyrighted but can be freely copied and
distributed. The copyright protection usually restricts users from selling
or distributing the software for profit, altering or reverse engineering
the program, or claiming the program as their own. You do not have to
register freeware.
Public Domain
This type of software may or may not be copyrighted, and it may or
may not have a listed author. Public domain means that the software
costs nothing to keep and use and that it is freely distributed to the
public. The main difference between public domain software and freeware
is that usually there is no way to contact the author, and most likely
there will be no support of any kind available for the software.
Because it is often difficult to determine whether software is in the
public domain or copyrighted and, if copyrighted, whether it is shareware
or freeware, the following suggestions may help users stay within the
laws regarding copyright:
-
Assume all software is copyrighted even if it does not bear a copyright
symbol. The only source for permission to copy copyrighted software
is either a specific grant of that right in a license agreement or
the express or implied (with regard to freeware) permission of the
copyright holder.
-
Retain all packaging materials that contain provisions of a licensing
agreement between the user and the software copyright holder. Refer
to these materials for information about what copying is permissible
for the particular software program. Note that most license agreements
prohibit renting, leasing or lending original copies of software.