What you should know about software license agreements
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Each time a computer program is installed, regardless of what the primary function of the program is, you have to click and accept the software license agreement before the installation will proceed. This agreement features terms of acceptable use of the program and explains in detail the terms of the software license that has been purchased for the program. Owning a software license does not grant you the right to do whatever you please with the software, as each developer has different terms that they place on what exactly you are being sold when you buy a software license.
The compliancy with these terms keeps you within your legal rights as a software purchaser. This is important to follow in the corporate world, as the number of computers running licensed software is high enough to chance greater scrutiny. If a home computer user buys a computer program and installs it on both his or her desktop and laptop simultaneously, they will be possibly violating terms of the software license agreement by running one license on two separate computers. The chances of this ever being held under scrutiny are slimmer than if a business were to do the same action but on a larger, higher profile scale. While both situations present an issue of legality, the corporation stands to be noticed more easily.
Larger companies are audited at times by an entity that represents the community of software developers. The audits can consist of demanding records from an IT department that show software license use versus ownership. They can also enter the company and run a network analysis tool to obtain exact counts of the software installed on all machines that are connected to the corporate local area network. The habit of clicking to agree with a software license agreement without reading it can present a legal risk to anyone who operates a computer that uses such software in a way not in keeping with its terms of use.
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