Can Software company send me notice for using software w/o purchasing

878 votes

The answer to your query depends upon the terms and conditions of the software licensing agreement.

In general, the user agreement or license agreement provides that that you can use the software for education/personal purpose without utilising the same for commercial benefit to the user.

In order to address your problem, the license agreement has to be reviewed to ascertain whether a genuine claim has arisen or not.

Thanks,

Advocate Nakul Batra LawRato

559 votes

Yes. The company can send you notice for Intellectual property right violations (copyright violation). It is for civil or criminal offence.
If you are earning through the use of the software, it is always legible to buy the software.

LawRato LawRato

520 votes

If you are using free/open source software then the software company cannot send you notice and these types of software, generally, are for free trial basis for one month. BUT if you are commercially exploiting any software meaning thereby developing the software and selling it out, doing any work to get money, in other words for gaining money by using this software, is a violation of copyright. If anyone is using patch version of any software, pirated software and generate key by any key generator, is an infringement of copyright and for that a company can take action against you.

In India, the copyright of computer software is protected under the Indian Copyright Act of 1957. Police can raid your office or house and can arrest you without warrant. Under the Indian Copyright Act, a software pirate can be tried under both civil and criminal law. Sections of The IT Act, 2000, specifically Section 63B, can also be applied based on scenario of piracy. The minimum jail term for software copyright infringement is seven days, and the maximum jail term is three years. Statutory fines range from a minimum of 50,000 to a maximum of 200,000 rupees.

Advocate Sheetal Vohra LawRato