Don’t grant a license to SaaS, AIaaS, or other cloud services
Many software-as-a-service (SaaS) contracts grant a “license” to the vendor’s software. So do a lot of other cloud services agreements – on offerings like PaaS and AIaaS (artificial intelligence as-a-service). That’s a mistake, at least in the U.S. and jurisdictions with similar copyright laws. Licenses authorize reproduction of on-premise software (generally). Customers don’t reproduce SaaS […]
Don’t grant or receive licenses to “use” software
Here’s a typical grant of rights from a software end-user license agreement (EULA): Provider hereby grants Customer a license to use 30 copies of the Software. Common though that clause may be, it’s dysfunctional. On-premise software licenses grant rights under copyright. And the copyright statute does not address a right to use anything. U.S. copyright […]
Avoid Licenses to “Use” Software
A lot of software licenses grant the recipient the right to “use” software. But the use license springs from a misunderstanding of copyright law. As a result, it’s not clear. A use license may give broader rights than the provider intends or narrower rights than the recipient needs. I’m going to suggest a better, simpler […]