Re: office machines, software copies

Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 14:34:19 -0500
From: jane_fredeman[_at_]sfu.ca

> Can someone give me a short (or long) answer to the question of how many
> copies of a program a firm should purchase when several users and several
> machines are involved.

The answer generally depends on the software company and its licensing structure. Most software companies will expect you to purchase one "copy" of their product for every simultaneous user at your firm. In practice, this means that you purchase one real copy to be installed on your shared server, and then you purchase enough licenses to accomodate your user pool (where each license purchased permits an additional simultaneous use of the product) usually at a lower per-user cost than if you actually went out and purchased the same number of copies off the shelf.

Some products (Paradox, PC-Docs) automatically detect & compare the number of installed licenses and the number of simultaneous users and then either broadcast warnings or refuse to operate when the latter exceeds the former. Other products (WordPerfect last I knew) perform no such detection and leave it up to the firm's good ethics to purchase the necessary number of licenses.

The law is on the side of the software provider. It is illegal to use a single copy of purchased software on more than one computer or to make or distribute copies (other than for archival purposes) without the specific permission of the copyright owner (usually the providor).

Hope this helps.
-brent

p.s.
I'm not a lawyer (at the moment) and my comments should in no way be regarded as a substitute for competent legal advice from an intellectual property attorney.

---
Brent C.J. Britton <brent[_at_]media.mit.edu> 617-536-4654 
"I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man." -- Publius