That means that the owner of a copyright holds the exclusive right to reproduce and distribute his or her work. For software this means it is illegal to copy or distribute software, or its documentation, without the permission of the copyright holder. Lack of copy-protection does NOT constitute permission to copy software without authorization of the software copyright owner. Software acquired by colleges and universities is usually covered by licenses. Such licenses cover software whether installed on stand-alone or networked systems, whether in private offices and rooms, or in public clusters and laboratories.
Some institutional licenses permit copying for certain purposes.
The license may limit copying, as well. Consult your campus authorities to be sure if you are unsure about the permissible use of a particular software product. Some licenses may even restrict the use of a copy to a specific machine, even if you own more than one system. In general, licenses usually do NOT allow the software to be installed or resident on more than a single machine, or to run the software simultaneously on two or more machines. Historically, the Copyright Law was modified to permit certain educational use of copyrighted materials without the usual copyright restrictions.