License your software to your customers
Your software reaches people you will never meet, on terms you write once.Every customer who uses your software is using it on terms somebody wrote. If that is a template you found, or an order form with nothing behind it, the terms are working against you in the three places that matter: what customers may do with your code, what you are on the hook for when something breaks, and what happens to their data. We write the licence your product is actually sold under, so it holds at one customer and at a thousand.
A cap on what a bug can cost you
Liability is limited deliberately, at a level your insurer recognises, rather than left open.
Promises you can keep every month
Support and availability are written at a level you meet routinely, not at your best month.
Terms that survive enterprise diligence
A larger customer's lawyers read the same document, and it holds without a special deal each time.
What does a software licence actually do?
You do not sell software, you licence it. Copyright in your source code exists automatically under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) (the Act), and the licence grants your customer a limited right to use it while leaving that copyright with you. It also does work no other document does. It caps what you are liable for if the software fails, sets out what support and availability you have actually promised, states who owns the data customers put in, and says what happens to that data when they leave. For anything sold on standard terms, those clauses are read most closely when the relationship is going badly.
Can we just use a template software licence?
You can, and many businesses start that way, but a template is written for a generic product and yours is not generic. The clauses that cost real money, liability, support and data, are exactly the ones a template gets wrong for you.
Can we exclude all liability for problems with our software?
Not entirely. Consumer guarantees cannot be contracted out of where they apply, and a term that is wholly one-sided in a standard form contract can be unenforceable. A proportionate cap is far more useful than a blanket exclusion that fails.
Who owns the data our customers put into our software?
Whatever the agreement says. Customers will generally expect to own their own data and to get it back in a usable form when they leave. Saying so clearly avoids negotiating it separately with every enterprise buyer.
How often should we update our terms?
Whenever the product changes materially, when you start selling to a different kind of customer, and when you move into a new jurisdiction. A yearly read-through catches most of it.
Using a template you found online?
Send it to us with a description of what your software does and who buys it. We will tell you where it leaves you exposed, and whether it is worth fixing or replacing.
Every customer gets the same terms, so the terms had better be right
Your software is sold on standard terms, which means one document governs every customer relationship you will ever have. A weakness in it isn’t a single bad deal, it is the same bad deal repeated at scale, and you usually find out when a customer is already unhappy. The clauses deciding it, liability, support, IP and data, are the ones least likely to have been written for your product.
- We will review how your software is sold, deployed and supported.
- We will draft the licence, the liability cap and the support commitments.
- We will write the data ownership, security and exit provisions.
- We will set the terms up so your team can issue them without legal review each time.
You built the product and the paperwork never caught up
The software works, customers are paying, and the business has grown past the point where every deal is a conversation. The terms people agree to came from somewhere early on, possibly a template, possibly a customer’s own document you accepted to get the deal done. Now a larger client is asking about uptime commitments, data location and what happens if you are acquired, and you are reading your own terms to find out what you have promised. That is where most software businesses discover their licence was never written for the product they now have.
What's included in your software licensing service
- A review of your existing terms, template or order form.
- Drafting of the software licence agreement.
- Liability caps, exclusions and warranty positions.
- Support, maintenance and availability commitments.
- Data ownership, hosting and exit provisions.
One weak clause, repeated across every customer you have
An uncapped liability clause means a bug that costs a customer money can cost you more than the contract was ever worth, and your insurer will read that clause before they read anything else. Support and availability promises made loosely become commitments you are measured against, and a promise of reasonable endeavours is a different thing from an uptime figure with a remedy attached. Silence on data is worse. If the agreement doesn’t say who owns customer data and what happens to it on exit, you will negotiate that question individually with every enterprise customer you ever sell to. And where your terms are standard form, parts of them can simply be struck out as unfair.
How your terms start working for the business
We start with how your software is actually sold and used: who buys it, what it does, where it runs and what breaks when it fails. Then we write the grant to match, limited to what customers need and no more, and put a real cap on liability with the exclusions your insurer expects to see. Support, availability and maintenance get stated at a level you can meet every month rather than at your best month. The data clauses say who owns what, where it is held and what happens on exit. What you get is one document your sales team can send without a lawyer attached, and that survives diligence by a customer much bigger than you.
How your software licence gets written
Written once, for every customer who comes after.Map the product
We work through how your software is sold, deployed and supported, and what actually happens when it fails.
Write the terms
We draft the licence, the liability position, the support commitments and the data clauses to match the product you really have.
Put it to work
We set it up so your team can issue it without legal review on every deal. We also tell you what to revisit as the product changes.
Terms your sales team can send without a lawyer attached
Software businesses usually get their terms written twice: once cheaply at the start, and once properly after a customer, an insurer or an acquirer has read them closely. The second time is more expensive, and it happens with somebody waiting.
We have 2 Accredited Specialists in Business Law. We are ISO 9001 accredited as well, so what happens on your file, and when you hear about it, are defined rather than assumed.
Our great lawyer guarantee
Six principles we hold to, whatever you bring us and however long it takes.
Take the time
We listen carefully to understand what you want to achieve, then step you through the advice and the documents.
Share our knowledge
We pass on as much as we can, so you can make your own informed decisions.
Stick to our knitting
We only do what we are good at, so you never pay for our learning.
Work as one team
Someone is always available to answer your question or point you the right way.
Fair pricing
A fixed or capped quote for advice and documents, so you do not carry the price risk.
It is your show
We are in it for a front row seat to witness your success, not for our egos.
Get the terms right before scale makes them expensive
Tell us what your software does and how it is sold. We will tell you what your current terms commit you to, and write the ones that suit the business you are building.
More on this area of law
Read more about software licensing, liability and protecting the intellectual property in your product.
It’s all in the name: how to protect your business and domain names
It’s all in the name: how to protect your business and domain names
Often, business owners are dealing with problems that they perceive to be important and urgent. They are trying to get a commercial deal done with a