Oracle LMS—Oracle Compliance

Oracle Corporation grants the right to use its software through software license agreements or sublicense agreements. Unauthorized or unlicensed use of Oracle’s software may constitute a breach of contract and/or a violation of intellectual property rights laws. Noncompliance may be deliberate, but can also occur unintentionally due to a lack of knowledge of the applicable license terms, lack of license management, or lack of controls over the distribution of the software within an organization.

Oracle Corporation is committed to protecting its contractual and intellectual property rights and will assist its customers and partners in obtaining and maintaining adequate licenses for their use of Oracle programs.

The Customer and Partner Are Responsible for Managing Their Oracle Licenses

When customers license Oracle software, it is their responsibility to ensure that they are utilizing their licenses in accordance with the terms and conditions of their license agreements. In addition, it is a partner’s responsibility to ensure that they are selling Oracle licenses in accordance with their resale distribution agreements. It is ultimately the customer’s and partner’s responsibility to ensure that they understand their license rights and that they are complying with those rights.


Oracle Can Assist in License Management

Oracle Corporation is committed to ensuring our customers and partners have access to information and services that will assist them in understanding and managing their license obligations and investment in Oracle licenses. The Oracle License Management Services (LMS) group is the only Oracle group authorized to review and provide opinions on compliance status. They will provide guidance, education, and impartial opinions on a customer's or partner’s compliance state.

If you would like the assistance of an Oracle LMS expert, please use the contact links on oracle.com/corporate/license-management-services.


Getting to License Compliance

If Oracle Corporation identifies a license violation, it will provide written notification of the violation to the noncompliant organization and generally will allow thirty days for obtaining the appropriate licenses or otherwise correcting the violation. Oracle LMS and the commercial team will assist the customer or partner in obtaining the appropriate licenses for the desired use of the Oracle software programs.

The license compliance shortfall may be corrected in one of the following ways:

  • Through the purchase of sufficient licenses and associated support to cover the compliance shortfall. Backdated support may also be assessed for the period of unlicensed usage.
  • If the customer removes the Oracle software, or reconfigures their hardware environment, a term license and associated support can be purchased to cover the period of unlicensed usage.

Oracle endeavors to resolve license compliance violations in a fair and accurate manner. If a business resolution cannot be obtained, the resolution will be escalated to the appropriate authority through Oracle’s Legal department. Remedies open to Oracle include, but are not limited, to:

  • Charging full list price for additional software licenses required to correct the license violation
  • Charging technical support fees for the period of unlicensed use of the software
  • Suspension of technical support service and software updates, where applicable
  • Termination of the license agreement and associated licenses
  • Cancellation of OPN status and sublicense rights

Ready to connect?

Validate the compliance position of your Oracle estate.