Software and Copyright

All software has one or more authors who assert the right to their intellectual property in the software that they have written. Copyright applies therefore to all all software whether or not you have paid money for it and the distribution and use of software is subject to a 'licence' which specifies the terms of use. The conditions that apply to a particular piece of software depend on a number of things, but in general there are four types of licence:-

• Commercial software (perpetual use)
• Commercial software (annual rental)
• Shareware
• Freeware

Commercial Software (perpetual use)

In this case you pay a fee for the software and the licence allows you to use it for as long as you like on one machine and to make copies only for the purpose of backup if something goes wrong with your machine. If you change your machine, you may transfer the software to your new one, but you MUST delete it from the old one before passing it on to someone else. In some cases a licence may permit use on more than one machine, but this is ALWAYS EXPLICIT in the licence terms.

Commercial Software (annual rental)

This is similar to the perpetual use licence, but you have to pay a fee each year for continued use and in most cases the software stops working unless the fee is paid and a new 'licence key' is issued by the supplier. Annual rental often applies to site licences (where once the fee is paid, the organisation may use the software on as many machines as it likes) and to software on mainframe or server computers. Again the licence terms will be EXPLICIT as to what use is allowed.

NOTE: In neither of the above cases are you permitted to attempt to modify or reverse engineer the software or remove any copyright messages, etc.

Shareware

Software in this category is made available initially for a free 'trial' period. If after the initial period (typically 30 days) you wish to continue using the software, you are asked to send a (usually small) fee to the author(s) of the software. In some cases the software enforces this by refusing to work after the trial period, but irrespective of this in using the software you are accepting the licence terms and are infringing the author's copyright if you continue to use the software after the trial period. In return for the fee you frequently receive a more up-to-date version of the software which does not 'nag' you to pay your fee to register your copy.

Freeware

Software in this category is made available free for certain categories of use (such as education or personal use). It is usually issued under a licence called a GNU licence which lays out the terms and conditions of free use. The main restrictions are that you cannot use the software for commercial purposes, although you are usually allowed to modify the software, but are duty bound to submit any improvements that you make to the author(s) so that they can incorporate them in future releases.

All software has licence conditions, even that downloaded free from the Internet and failure to comply with the licence conditions renders you liable to copyright infringement.

More information on copyright, educational use and the code of conduct which should be followed in using software may be found on the CHEST web site at:-

http://www.chest.ac.uk/conduct.html

Details of the GNU licence can be found on the GNU foundation for free software website at:-

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html

If you have questions about software licencing, they may be referred to the Computing Service advisory service at:

email: advisor@gla.ac.uk
tel: ext. 4831
or in person on level 3 in the University Library.

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