What are the legal issues regarding software copyright and software licenses?
If you buy a copy of a piece of software with a single user licence then you are entitled to install it on one PC. No more than that. Some software comes with multi-user licenses, so you can install it on more than one PC. However….I have heard of people installing an application on their home PC and also on their work PC under the same licence. The theory is that you can’t use the two computers at the same time, so only one instance of the software will be running at the same time. Not sure of the legalities of that though. It is possible to but extra licences for certain sotware (mainly server software) which allow you to install additional copies, but for home use these are not needed. In reality, there are thousands of home users running “illegal” software that they have “borrowed” from friends or work and installed. The chances of being caught are very small as long as you don’t send your PC off to Microsoft etc.
