U. S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE COPYRIGHTED SOFTWARE POLICY Title 17, United States Code, Section 106 gives copyright owners exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute their material, and Section 504 states that copyright infringers can be held liable for damages to the copyright owner. Title 18, United States Code provides felony penalties for software copyright infringement. It is the responsibility of each DOC employee and supervisor to protect the government's interests as they perform their duties. This includes responsibility for assuring that commercial software, acquired by the government, is used only in accordance with licensing agreements. Likewise, it is also their responsibility to assure that any proprietary software is properly licensed before being installed on DOC equipment. This policy does not apply to software developed by or for a federal agency and no restrictions apply to its use or distribution within the federal government. Supervisors will ensure that the following requirements are made known to all employees and will be held accountable for conducting periodic audits to ensure that these policies are being followed: 1. Install only commercial software, including shareware, that has been purchased through the government procurement process on DOC systems; 2. Follow all provisions of the license agreements issued with the software and register organizational ownership; 3. Do not make any illegal copies of copyrighted software. Normally the license will allow a single copy to be made for archival purposes. If the license is for multiple users, do not exceed the authorized number of copies; 4. At least annually, an inventory of all software on each individual PC will be audited against the organization's license agreement records to ensure that no illegal copies of commercial software are installed on any equipment. 5. Maintain written records of software installed on each machine and ensure that a license or other proof of ownership is on file for each piece of software; 6. Store licenses, software manuals and procurement documentation in a secure location (i.e., closed file cabinet, etc.); 7. When upgrades to software are purchased, the old version should be disposed of in accordance with the licensing agreement to avoid a potential violation. Upgraded software is considered a continuation of the original license, not an additional license; 8. Some government owned software licenses do allow employees to take copies home for use on their personally owned computers under specific circumstances (e.g., for government work but not personal business). Unless the license specifically states that employees may take copies of software home for installation on home computers, doing so is a violation of the copyright law and the individual will be liable. 9. All illegal copies of software will be deleted immediately. All organizations must acquire special purpose software to inventory and document all software on all PCs belonging to the organization. This special purpose software may be a commercial product or the organization may acquire free software produced by the Software Publishers Association for this purpose from their operating unit ITSO. Individual employees should be discouraged from installing their personally owned software on government equipment. If it is in the best interest of the DOC organization to allow personally owned software, authorization must be granted in writing by the immediate supervisor, showing the justification. Prior to authorization, the employee must provide the software license and give assurance that copyright infringement will not occur from installation on government equipment. Employees not following these procedures shall be held personally liable for any violations of the copyright laws and subject to the penalties contained in Title 17 and Title 18 of the United States Code.