Probably everyone has come across the terms “license”, “licensed”, “licensee” and “licensor”, for example, during discussions about the need to observe copyright. But what does each of these terms mean?
A license is a document issued by one natural or legal person to another person, also legal or natural, and giving the latter the right to carry out certain actions. The person who issues the license is called the licensor and the person who obtains the license is called the licensee. Some of the licenses are issued by the government. The law "On licensing certain types of activities" provides a list of types of activities that are prohibited to legal entities and individual entrepreneurs without obtaining a license. In English, a license is also called a driving license. A license agreement or license is called such an agreement to use the result of intellectual property. activities (work, invention, trademark, etc.), in which the licensor himself is not deprived of the right to continue to use this result of intellectual activity and grant this right to others. In another way, such an agreement is called non-exclusive. In contrast, an exclusive contract implies the complete transfer of almost all rights from the licensor to the licensee, depriving the first of the right to dispose of the intellectual property itself. Such a contract is sometimes incorrectly called exclusive (from the English exclusive - exclusive). In the event of its termination or upon termination of the validity period, the right to dispose of the object passes back to the licensor. Both non-exclusive and exclusive contracts are valid for the period specified in its text, and if such is not specified, then within five years from the date of conclusion. In any case, this period cannot exceed the period of validity of the exclusive right to the result of intellectual activity. A free license is a public offer. Such an agreement is concluded at the time of the so-called acceptance, that is, when the licensee performs the actions specified in the text of the offer. The most common free licenses are the GPL, Creative Commons of various flavors, BSD, the less common MIT licenses, Artistic, EPL, and many others.
