Licence Agreements

What are Licence Agreements?

Licence agreements are used for reinforcing the property resulting from the fruits of mental labor, from software developers. They are reinforceable by law.

Generally, a licensing agreement is between two parties, the licensor and the licensee. This agreement allows the licensor to allow the licensee to use the product that they have sold to them, under certain conditions. The licensee has certain restrictions on what they can do with the product that they are given including copyright issues, copies being made, modifications being allowed and the distribution of the source code.

There are various types of licence agreements including commercial, shareware, freeware, public domain, open source licence, site licence and creative commons licence.

Licence agreements are essential to a software that is being released, as there have been several security issues concerning modifications, copies and overall, the rights of the software developers.

Example of Adobe Software License Agreement (Creative Cloud Products)

Reasons for Licence Agreements

Hence, there are a few reasons as to why each software comes with a specific licence agreement.

Software licence agreements allowed for licensors to restrict the redistribution of copies of the software from licensees. Without the licence agreements, there is a possibility that users can create illegal reproductions of the licensor’s products.
When the software is released, there is always space for improvement, hence, if there are users who are able to develop the software better, the licence agreement entitles them to being recognised in the developing of this product. regardless of whether they are the original software developers or not.

Adobe Acrobat Pro DC End User Licence Agreement

Adobe provides a licence agreement for all end users of all of their products, in which it is divided into 20 parts, covering various issues involved with the use of this product. They are as follows:

1. Agreement with Adobe: relationships with particular Adobe Inc.'s and any additional terms

2. Privacy: privacy policy, how much access Adobe has to a user's content

3. Use of Services and Software: Adobe's intellectual property, providing of user-generated content, sample and content files

4. Your Content: ownership of content, ability to share content, obligations for certain actions

5. Account Information: responsible for all activity using the account

6. User Conduct: conduct for responsible use, and misuse

7. Fees and Payment: payment of any taxes or third-party fees, credit card information for payments

8. Warranty and Indemnification Obligations: agree to rights in licenses, and compensate for any loss or damage

9. Disclaimers of Warranties: not liable or responsible for certain actions

10. Limitation of Liability: not liable for any misconduct unless necessary a certain sum will be paid, depending on the situation

11. Termination: termination by user, Adobe, Group Administrator

12. Investigations: screenings and disclosure

13. Trade Control Laws: subject to US and international laws, restrictions and regulations

14. Australian Consumer Law: everything is under the Competition and Consumer Act (2010)

15. Dispute Resolution: process and rules involved with this resolution

16. Audit Rights: verification of installation of software

17. Updates and Availability: updates to General and Additional Terms, services and software, its availability

18. No Modifications, Reverse Engineering: imposing if decision to modify or reverse engineer is made

19. Miscellaneous: notices, assignments, headings and no waiver of the prevision

20. DMCA: respect of Intellectual Property Rights of others, and will respond to clear notices of copyright infringement consistent with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

Adobe has only included a more specific licence agreement, particularly for Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. Again this is also divided into multiple parts, which can be found here.

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