Can employee be restricted to use his or her BYOA(Bring Your Own Application) or BYOL(Bring Your Own License) by employer?

I recently buy 1 per seat license of diff application from scootersoftware. They said I can use this application in my home PC and my company's PC etc as long as I'm the only user who use my license.

And I said that I want to use this application to quickly get my work done to my company(my employer). But my company said that you can't use your license in this company because this license is not bought by this company. And strange thing is that the application is used in another section of my company. So the problem is not the application security matter. My boss said it seems my company don't want manage individual license. Should I obey them from this reason?

I believe scootersoftware is the only company that can say such a things. From my view, my company behave as they have monopoly license. But in fact they only bought a few dozens of per seat license.

Does my company violate scootersoftware's right? Or am I missing something?

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    It is hard to understand what you've written. If I understand it correctly, your question amounts to the following: "Can an employer legally place arbitrary restrictions on the tools I use to perform my job?" If so, the answer (at least in the U.S.) is yes if you are an employee. – feetwet Aug 24 '15 at 14:51
  • @feetwet♦: Ah,,,Sorry for my low english skills(I'm japanese). But it seems you almost understand my intent. I think employer need reason or contract to prevent using employee own software license. @jimsug♦ said I need to check the contract. Do you say, no matter what contract is written, employer can restrict individual software license? – Kei Minagawa Aug 24 '15 at 16:56
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    Yes, in the U.S. an employer can generally dictate how you should do your job. And like any private entity they can certainly restrict what you do on their property regardless of whether you are an employee. – feetwet Aug 24 '15 at 21:37
  • Who owns the pc you're doing your work on? – Andy Aug 30 '15 at 21:06
  • @Andy: Yeah, that is my company's PC. I read my employee contract, and realized that I can't use my own license for work. The contract says my company lends employer things needed for work. So I can't use my own things except things that are belonging my company. Basically they don't want to bring personal things for work. I think this is because security and management issue. So now I stopped to fight with my company. – Kei Minagawa Aug 31 '15 at 11:18

For a large organization, software licensing compliance is a very broad and intractable problem. The licensing environment is very different for the big company than it is for little tiny you. Many large companies are subject to audits by software vendors (i.e. Adobe, Oracle, etc.) in which they have to show licenses purchased for each active seat. There's a whole new INDUSTRY around maintaining license compliance. An employee bringing in their own software and installing it on a company computer complicates this vastly.

That is the environment that the question should be considered within. The large company makes the decision somewhere along the way that your individual efficiency in performing your individual tasks is less important than maintaining auditable software licensing compliance. Since they own the computer/laptop/server, it's their decision.

Many times it seems that corporate policies as they apply to the individual worker are obstructive and limiting, but there's a bigger picture to the situation.

  • Yeah my company very takes care of compliance. To install any software to my company's PC which is lent from my company must be applied. And only if it was accepted, I can use the software. So my company may place high priority on managing compliance. – Kei Minagawa Aug 24 '15 at 16:31

Essentially, if you are licensed to use the software in a certain manner, then you are entitled to do so. However, the company that employs you may have employment policies that prevent you from doing so.

In this case, you may be bound by the employment policies and/or contract, which you should probably comply with, in order to avoid breaching that contract.

There may be other reasons why the company forbids you from using a single-user license - if there's any kind of desktop virtualisation, for example. However, you'd need to be a lot more specific about your environment.

  • The policies says that I can't use my personal belongings for work in my company. And says I'm not allowed to use things which are not granted by security management section in my company. Are these 2 policies enough to prevent my using individual license? – Kei Minagawa Aug 24 '15 at 13:57
  • You can't use your own belongings? The company supplies sox and underwear? – Dale M Aug 24 '15 at 14:34
  • @kelmina You will need to refer to your employment contract, and any policies referred to by it, in order to determine this. However, it is not uncommon for companies to limit the software that can be used, and the users that have access to particular software, for a host of reasons. – jimsug Aug 24 '15 at 15:06
  • OK. First, I need to find where are my contracts. And then I'll check them. Thanks. – Kei Minagawa Aug 24 '15 at 16:08
  • @DaleM Socks and underwear aren't normally tools of the job. – Andy Aug 30 '15 at 21:06

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