Sidebar: I Own This Software, Right? Well… When you purchase software and install it on your computer, are you the owner of that software? Technically, you are not! When you install software, you are actually just being given a license to use it. When you first install a package, you are asked to agree to the terms of service or the license agreement. In that agreement, you will find that your rights to use the software are limited. For example, in the terms of the Microsoft Office software license, you will find the following statement: “This software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the features included in the software edition you licensed.” For the most part, these restrictions are what you would expect. You cannot make illegal copies of the software and you may not use it to do anything illegal. However, there are other, more unexpected terms in these software agreements. For example, many software agreements ask you to agree to a limit on liability. Again, from Microsoft: “Limitation on and exclusion of damages. You can recover from Microsoft and its suppliers only direct damages up to the amount you paid for the software. You cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages.” This means if a problem with the software causes harm to your business, you cannot hold Microsoft or the supplier responsible for damages.
Applications for the Enterprise Information Systems for Business and Beyond (2019) pg. 52
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