Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You copy the programs.
It's not the best solution, but it's the only one you've got. You can't offer business courses if you don't have the tools to teach them. The students wouldn't get the training they need, and it wouldn't be long before enrollment dropped.
Everyone copies computer programs from friends, family and colleagues. And besides, your bosses have told you to do so. You make several copies of the necessary programs and give them to the instructors to install on the new computers.
One day you are sitting in your office, feet up on the desk, taking a well-deserved coffee break. Your secretary knocks on the door looking a little flushed. Behind her are some men in dark suits. One of them hands you a piece of paper.
It's a temporary restraining order, issued by the courts, allowing software company representatives, accompanied by the police, to audit the computer programs installed on the college's computers.
It turns out an investigation was conducted following a call to an anti-piracy hotline. "Companies continue to duplicate and use software illegally. Indeed, since January 1996, [the] Software Publishers Association (SPA) has settled four matters for over $100,000 each, including SPA's largest single settlement of $500,000," says Sandra Sellers. She is the SPA's vice-president of intellectual property enforcement and education.
The case is high profile and the college is fined $175,000. That money would have been better spent on the original software in the first place. The college's reputation is marred and it could take years to shake this embarrassment.