Issues related to the illegal copying or piracy of educational software in the schools and its potential effect on quality software availability are discussed. Copyright violation is examined as a reason some software producers may be abandoning the school software market. An explanation of what the copyright allows and prohibits in terms of computer software is followed by a list of five legal principles for assessing legality of software use. The remainder of the paper addresses questions of whether controlling piracy would automatically improve software quality; whether the home market will really be sufficiently more lucrative than the educational market to cause software producers to abandon the school market; whether illegal copying is really widespread in the schools; and whether piracy alone is a major cause of poor software. Also examined are the current quality and perceptions of quality of educational software, why so much copyright violation exists, and what can be done to assure quality courseware for the schools. (LMM)