Copyright Laws

The Office of Information Technology

Different copyright laws apply for commercial, public domain, and site licensed software packages. You are responsible for abiding by any and all copyright laws that apply to the software you use while at Ohio State.

• Commercial software carries license agreements that you automatically agree to as soon as you open the package. You should read the agreement and follow the restrictions. Most license agreements for commercial software permit copies of the program to be made for use by the person who bought the package; the original copy is intended to be kept as a backup. It is a violation of the agreement to make additional copies for other users.
• Site licensed software has different restrictions and site limitations, depending on the agreement set up by the distributor and Ohio State. If you obtain a site licensed program at Ohio State, you are responsible for using it in accordance with its site license agreement.
• Freeware is available to anyone to copy without obligation, but the author does not give up the copyright to the work.
• Shareware is available to anyone to copy; however, if you try the program and like it, you are obligated to send a small donation to the developer of the program. The donations let shareware programmers know that their work is appreciated and help to support the development of future software.
• Office of Information Technology policy. OIT, in an effort to abide by the copyright agreements for its software, has posted messages on all its computers warning customers that illegally copying software is a federal offense. If consultants or site assistants observe you illegally copying software, they will ask you to immediately reformat your diskettes.

This is part of the Guidelines on Ethical Use of Computing Resources of The Ohio State University.