In many cases, Christian ministries receive bad advice. They are sometimes told that their IT guy knows how to purchase a single copy of a program, but install it ministry-wide, thereby saving thousands of dollars. However, purchasing one copy of a software license does not give the ministry the legal right to install that software on multiple devices.
It can be helpful to think of software as a twenty-dollar bill. If you have a bill, you can spend it on anything you like; but you may not photocopy it and spend it over and over! That, of course, would be counterfeiting.
If you own a software license for a single device, you can install it on any device you wish; but you cannot install it on multiple devices. If you want the software on multiple devices, you need a license that specifically allows that.
At this point, private trade organizations like the Business Software Alliance (BSA) use the courts to strictly enforce software licensing and to crack down on software piracy. If a ministry is audited by the BSA, fines are likely to range in the tens of thousands of dollars, not to mention any legal fees that may be associated with the action.
In order to protect your ministry, the Christian Law Association recommends the adoption of this software policy:
[Ministry Name] purchases and licenses the use of various computer software for ministry purposes and does not own the copyright to this software or its related documentation. Unless authorized by the software developer, [Ministry Name] does not have the right to reproduce such software for use on more than one device. Staff members may use software only on local area networks or on multiple devices according to the software license agreement. [Ministry Name] prohibits the illegal duplication of software and its related documentation. Staff members are not permitted to install any program, business or personal, onto ministry equipment without prior ministry approval.