There are 9 records in our database:

State: CA
City: Los Angeles
Distrct: LA Unified School District
Type of action: Lawsuit
Material involved: Computer software
Year of action: 1998
Issue settled or not: Yes, out of court
Infringer: Staff/paraprofessional
Sequence of events: A complaint from someone at one of the districts school buildings to the Business Software Alliance. Nearly 1,400 unauthorized copies of Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Word were found. Total retail value more than $500,000.
Resolution (if settled): Settled out of court for $300,000 plus the cost of replacing illegal copies district wide at a cost of nearly $5 million.
Fines/fees: $Nearly $5, 300,000
Method of case reported: Disgruntled teacher
Action by the court: Settled out of court
Action by the district: Paid fine of $300,000 and replaced licensed versions of software throughout the district at a cost of nearly $5 million and wrote a new/updated software copyright policy in school board policy
Anonymous: No
Contact name: Jennifer S. Maydole
Email address: jenniferm@ncesd.org
Knowledge of this case: Heard in media (radio, newspaper, TV)

State: IL
City: Carpentersville
Distrct: Community Unit School District 300
Type of action: Other
Material involved: Computer software
Year of action: 2001
Issue settled or not: Yes, out of court
Infringer: Administrator
Sequence of events: Illegal copies of Adobe Acrobat software was loaded onto several machines used by administrators at one school.
Resolution (if settled): An updated acceptable use policy. Building-level personnel may not purchase or install software. All administrators and teachers will be trained on copyright and district policy. One district level person will document all software licenses.
Fines/fees: $$50,000
Method of case reported: Other
Action by the court: Settled out of court.
Action by the district: An updated acceptable use policy. Building-level personnel may not purchase or install software. All administrators and teachers will be trained on copyright and district policy. One district level person will document all software licenses.
Anonymous: No
Contact name: ESchool News. 9-21-01
Email address:
Knowledge of this case: Heard in media (radio, newspaper, TV)

State: CO
City: Trinidad
Distrct: #1
Type of action: Cease and desist letter
Material involved: Other
Year of action: 2000
Issue settled or not: No, case dropped
Infringer: Student
Sequence of events: Student tapped into DPL database and used SIRS database. He/She did not know they were not supposed too since the program allowed them to search. They received the desist letter, asked me about it, and they no longer entered database.
Resolution (if settled): No further action taken past desist letter.
Fines/fees: $0
Method of case reported: Other
Action by the court:
Action by the district: We bought a site based license for the school which allows students to search magazine articles at home also
Anonymous: Yes
Knowledge of this case: Other

State: IL
City: Algonquin
Distrct: Community Unit District #300
Type of action: Lawsuit
Material involved: Computer software
Year of action: 2001
Issue settled or not: Yes, in court
Infringer: Teacher
Sequence of events: Teacher downloaded material on too many machines. Teacher was fired. Teacher turned in the district for software violations. District was sued, then fined.
Resolution (if settled): Several very large fines.
Fines/fees: $150,000, Reportedly
Method of case reported: Disgruntled teacher
Action by the court: The district lost the case and was fined heavily.
Action by the district: All hard drives were "cleaned" , and only the tech person at each school allowed to download material. This wasn't a change as it was the teacher that did it in the first place! Only District approved software was allowed. I have left this district, but heard it happened again this year with another large fine against the district (read about that one in the paper!)
Anonymous: Yes
Knowledge of this case: Occured in my district

State: PA
City: Lewisburg
Distrct: Lewisburg Area School District
Type of action: Other
Material involved: Other
Year of action: 2001
Issue settled or not: Yes, in court
Infringer: Student
Sequence of events: Software was being illegally loaded onto computers. A student was assisting with computer maintenance and became disgruntled and reported violations.
Resolution (if settled): District was fined and ordered to stop using software for which there were not site licenses.
Fines/fees: $250,000, approx.
Method of case reported: Disgruntled student
Action by the court:
Action by the district:
Anonymous: Yes
Knowledge of this case: Occured in my city

State: TX
City: San Antonio
Distrct: One of the San Antonio Districts
Type of action: Cease and desist letter
Material involved: Computer software
Year of action: 2002
Issue settled or not: Yes, out of court
Infringer: Other
Sequence of events: District received certified letter from Business Software Alliance saying they had "...received information that xxx District may have installed or in use on its computers, more copies of software products published by the BSA's member companies than it has authorization or licenses to support.", and "...BSA takes the position that any continued infringement after notice constitutes willful infringement and, upon learning of such infringement following the date of this letter [June 14, 2002], reserves the rights of our members to seek all legal remedies without further notice."
Resolution (if settled): The district asked its lawyer to write a letter saying that action would be taken to educate employees and that a software audit would occur.
Fines/fees: $
Method of case reported: Disgruntled teacher
Action by the court: NA
Action by the district: Email went to all employees that the seriousness of adherence to copyright law is of utmost importance and will be expected. A software audit is planned. A copyright workshop for all librarians and Campus Instructional Technologists had already been planned before the letter, with invitations also going to campus and district administrators.
Anonymous: Yes
Knowledge of this case: Occured in my district

State: NJ
City: E. Windsor
Distrct: Private Jewish school
Type of action: Cease and desist letter
Material involved: Computer software
Year of action: 1998
Issue settled or not: No, pending
Infringer: Administrator
Sequence of events: If you look at any of the computers they have software programs that they only bought a few copies off.
Resolution (if settled): no
Fines/fees: $none yet
Method of case reported: Other
Action by the court: none yet
Action by the district: none yet
Anonymous: Yes
Knowledge of this case: Other

State: TX
City: Garland
Distrct: Garland ISD
Type of action: Lawsuit
Material involved: Workbooks
Year of action: 2004
Issue settled or not: Yes, out of court
Infringer: Teacher
Sequence of events: As I understand it, the department chair in the English department at North Garland High School was given a TAKS workbook from the district English Coordinator. The intent of the coordinator was to provide department chairs with a resource to use as a guide for preparing TAKS questions and exercises for students. Apparently the department chair did not understand this. She subsequently copied the entire workbook for each teacher in her department. Several of those teachers then copied worksheet pages for their students to be used in class. Apparently, the publisher discovered this and filed suit.
Resolution (if settled): The district admitted to the violation, settled with the company out of court, and paid a large fine (I don't know the specific amount.
Fines/fees: $Yes, but I don't kno
Method of case reported: Copyright owner
Action by the court:
Action by the district: The district has appointed the library coordinator to be the copyright educator. We now have very specific district policies regarding copyright on the district website. A copyright PowerPoint is also posted and every employee is required to view it. The librarians in every school are being further educated in regard to copyright laws and are responsible for providing information to their individual campuses.
Anonymous: Yes
Knowledge of this case: Occured in my district

State: TX
City: Fort Worth
Distrct: Fort Worth ISD
Type of action: Cease and desist letter
Material involved: Print material
Year of action: 2004
Issue settled or not: Yes, out of court
Infringer: Administrator
Sequence of events: Feb. 2007 300 copies of multiple pages from a book were handed out at a district-wide meeting with no source citation or permission from the authors to make copies of their book. The administrator who made the copies was told twice that this would be an infringement and chose to make the copies anyway. A person who attended the meeting was able to locate the source and publisher and mailed a copy of the material to the publisher. Subsequently, the administrator and the superintendent both received cease and desist letters.
Resolution (if settled): It is my understanding that the district was asked to pay for 300 copies of the book.
Fines/fees: $15,000.00 (I believe
Method of case reported: Disgruntled teacher
Action by the court:
Action by the district: More training is taking place in the district, but as of April, 2007 no changes or additions have been made to district policies. I expect that there will be many more instances of this type of thing, as the district has yet to be very concerned about the types of infringements the teachers and administrators commit on a daily basis.
Anonymous: Yes
Knowledge of this case: Occured in my district