Microsoft Rental Rights Agreement for I-Cafés

This is an old subject but because of PAPT’s recent announcement to crackdown on software piracy again, many questions are asked in different forums so I take the liberty to quote an old news release. I believe it answers the question of what is a rental rights agreement that an i-café owner must secure in order to legally use Microsoft operating systems and software in his business.

Thursday, July 14, 2005
Microsoft to Internet cafes: Sign software rental deal

Software company Microsoft is encouraging Internet café owners to enter into Software Rental Agreement with the company to legalize the operations of their outlets.

The agreement will grant Internet cafés the right to rent out Microsoft programs to a third party or their customers, according to a statement.

Under the current Microsoft licensing terms, there is no right to allow a third party other than the buyer to use Microsoft software. This means that even after purchasing genuine Microsoft software, the buyer will not legally be able to rent out the use of the software, as what Internet cafés are doing.

“However, we understand that in an Internet café scenario, you do this regularly and therefore would be in breach of your license agreement with Microsoft. The Microsoft Software Rental Agreement with Internet Cafes seeks to rectify this,” the statement said.

Ivy Llena, marketing communications manager of Microsoft’s Market Development Partner (MDP)-Cebu, assured members of the Internet Café Association of Cebu that the program is not meant to monitor their compliance with the intellectual property rights law.

“We just want to reach out to them so that we will be able to establish a good relationship, which will help us in encouraging them to use only licensed software,” she said.

Llena also clarified that MDP-Cebu is not directly communicating with the Business Software Alliance, which has been monitoring the incidence of piracy.

Internet cafés that sign the Microsoft Software Rental Agreement will get rental rights at no extra cost, reduce their information technology costs because they will receive the free Micro-soft Shared Use Toolkit for Windows XP, and attract more clients because Micro-soft will provide free PC monitor stickers and posters to differentiate them from operators using pirated software, Microsoft said.

Those who don’t sign the agreement would be operating illegally. (JBN)

I lifted the above news article verbatim from Sun.Star Cebu. For the copy of the Microsoft Rental Rights Agreement for Internet Cafés, you can see the procedure and can download the form here.