The current most common license is concurrent use licensing which requires the licensee to pay for a maximum number of users of the program on the network. This has come to be the preferred type of license for networks because it provides the greatest flexibility for the end users and it is often the least expensive type of license since not all employees would ever simultaneously use the program. Current opinion is that first you make sure your front line people, the ones using these programs, are aware of what they can legally do. Second, if you have software with an unacceptable license agreement, you can alter the form by marking out terms and inserting new ones. This is worth doing because you often get what you want.
Databases often consist of previously copyrighted works now stored digitally.
The copyright of the underlying work is not changed by the fact that the format has changed from paper to electronic media. Unlike computer software, which has utilitarian aspects, databases are usually strictly factual. Facts are not copyrightable. One of the classic cases is Feist Communications vs. Rural Telephone Co., Inc. in which the Supreme Court held that the white pages do not meet the threshold of creativity required for legal protection. The Future Last summer the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights of the White House Information Infrastructure Task Force issued a draft report on how copyright law might be changed.