"It was a minor violation," he says. "We use AppleWorks for word processing but I put Office on their computers because they couldn't read the Microsoft Word attachments they kept getting from the district's central office. It was easy to do, and it made sense since our schools are in dire financial straits."

But this spring, Kowalski discovered that Microsoft didn't care much for his reasoning. Following an anonymous tip, the software giant launched an investigation of Philadelphia's entire public school system. Microsoft threatened to sue unless the administrative offices and all 264 schools conducted an audit and proved that every piece of installed Microsoft software had a valid license.

The district is still completing the process, but on May 16 -- just before final exams -- teachers and administrators received a letter from the central office commanding them to complete an inventory of every computer, every piece of installed software and every Microsoft license or proof of purchase. The memo also emphasized the serious stakes: "In an effort to avoid potential liability to the District in a time when finances are tight, we need all schools and offices to complete ... the computer and software inventory," it said. "Failure to meet the deadlines will result in your school or office being out of compliance, which will cost the school or office a substantial amount of money."

The district's chief information officer, Ron Daniels, says Microsoft has been "very supportive" during the audit, helping to trace licenses in its database. For its part, Microsoft representatives say that the audit is simply standard procedure. Working alone or through the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an industry wide enforcement group, Microsoft has been fighting the spread of illegally copied software for over a decade. Its most common targets are companies that copy software and then resell it illegally, but it's not unusual for urban, low-income schools to end up caught in the net too. But such schools aren't being singled out, say Microsoft and BSA attorneys. Once discovered -- typically through tips that come via hotlines like 1-800-RU-LEGIT -- they're treated just like any other violator, says Jenny Blank, BSA's director of enforcement.

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"The copyright law should be applied universally," she says. "What is it we're trying to teach these children anyway? Are we teaching them that its OK to steal? The message we need to get to them is that intellectual property deserves to be respected."

But critics in Philadelphia and elsewhere say that Microsoft and the BSA have their priorities out of whack. They argue that educators shouldn't have to pay exorbitant prices for software in the first place, but more importantly, that no public school should be compelled to play by the rules of an ever-changing license system that treats cash-strapped educational institutions just as it does for-profit businesses. Philadelphia in particular, they argue, deserves an even greater degree of understanding. Its schools and students are some of the poorest in the country. At the end of June, city officials announced that without a massive influx of state or federal cash, the district won't be able to pay its 27,000 employees through the upcoming school year.

"It's kind of like AIDS in Africa and the drug companies," Kowalski says. "Can anyone expect a dying person to be concerned about the drug companies' profits?"

The conflict between educational priorities and intellectual property protection is, on one level, a moral question -- what do we as a society think is more important? But there's also a practical aspect to the struggle that may ultimately make the moral question moot. By ratcheting up pressure on schools and imposing financial penalties, Microsoft is inviting educators to search for other, cheaper alternatives. And in today's software industry, there actually may be another choice, or at the very least, the potential for another choice.

Impelled in part by fiscal realities and in part by intellectual curiosity, educators are beginning to take a hard look at free and open-source software programs -- products that are created by volunteers and can be distributed without restriction. Adequate replacements for Microsoft Word or Outlook may not yet be ready for prime time -- but the harder Microsoft pushes, the more incentive educators have to join the world of free software, and turn potential into reality. The Philadelphia public school system may not be able to deflect Microsoft's legal assault, but in the long run, Microsoft and other proprietary software companies may be the ones that end up wounded.

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