Software Licensees Should Review Software Licences To Address Risks Of Indirect Use

Separate software applications are often connected together in an effort to help employees, customers and suppliers interact more efficiently. For instance, a software application previously used only by employees may be used to provide input to an internet site for customers to more easily be informed, or software to support sales efforts may be linked to databases with lists of orders and stock through another application which also deals with orders and stock (for example, an ERP system). A user of one application may therefore also be indirectly using other applications. In licensing terms, this raises the question of whether the user also needs a licence to use that second group of applications. Most often, the user is not interested in that second group of applications (the user may even be unaware of them), but uses them only to access or store data. That second group of applications thus provides a gateway to data relevant to the use of the first application.