Universities and licenses

[lauren at RAND-UNIX.ARPA]

Most (all?) Universities have students sign a form (somewhere in all the
stuff) that says they (the student) will abide by all University rules
and regulations and legal restrictions, etc.  By some interpretations,
this would be enough to make a student vulnerable to suit.  This would
seem particularly likely if the student had any reason to believe
that they might be violating a license (for example, they had heard
how the software was licensed).  In the sort of case we're talking about,
it would be almost impossible for a student not to hear (from teachers,
books, manuals, network digests, etc.) about how the software is
licensed.  But, even in the presence of absolute, provable ignorance, the 
student would almost certainly not get off the hook completely.  My guess 
is that the school would be sued and the student would be served with an 
injunction to block further dissemination or use of the material.

A similar case is large companies whose employees sometimes try
copy software the company bought.  Some employees have protested
that they thought it was OK to do that, but in court it was found
that they were not really ignorant of the licensed status of the software,
even though they had not signed a specific agreement with the company
they worked for regarding that software.  In other words, the courts
weren't fooled by the employees protests of ignorance.
And even if true ignorance was shown, the employees would still
have had to return the software, all copies, and to immediately stop 
any use of the materials.

This is a complex area of law that is probably not really suitable
for prolonged discussion in this technical list.  Also, I am not 
a lawyer, though I try to keep up with the literature in the area.

--Lauren--