License agreements can vary considerably from product to product. Some licenses may restrict use to a specific computer. Copyright law does not permit you to run your software on two or more computers simultaneously unless the license agreement specifically allows it. It may, however, be legal to lend your software to a friend temporarily as long as you do not keep a copy. Lack of copy protection does not constitute permission to copy software in order to share or sell it.
Copy protection makes it difficult to illegally copy or use licensed software.
Copy-protected software may, for example, require you to use a password or enter a serial number before you can run the software. Software acquired by U-M is usually licensed. The licenses restrict how and where the software can be legally used by members of the community. This applies to software installed on hard disks and servers at Campus Computing Sites, software distributed on disks by campus information technology providers, software on a campus mainframe, software on a campus central file storage system, and software available through campus networks. Some institutional licenses permit copying for certain purposes.