Licensing and institutional use

esrodrigues
A center on my campus wants to use Zotero's group library function to share relevant articles. They would like to have one central account and then invite individual users to join the library.

Our legal team is concerned that if a user account is created using the center's email address that we will be in violation of license, since multiple people on campus will be using it. They are also concerned that if the individual creates the account, they might also be in violation for the same reason.

My understanding is that this is not a concern--the concern would be if it created a second account instead of buying storage. This seems substantiated by discussion here: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/281471

However, the legal team are looking for some type of assurance.

I suppose another way of asking this question would be, are there any circumstances under which purchasing an institutional license is required?
  • adamsmith
    I don't work for Zotero so I can't make official statements, but to the extent they're willing to take this from me: group pricing is designed specifically the way it is so that institutional accounts can be used to host and pay for groups, so this doesn't just not violate the license, it's squarely within the intended use.

    There is never any circumstance under which purchasing institutional licenses is required. Institutional licenses are a way to purchase discounted individual storage where that is useful/needed.

    @dstillman or @fcheslack it'd probably be helpful if you could confirm.
  • dstillman
    Yes, what @adamsmith says is exactly right.
  • esrodrigues
    Thank you very much, @adamsmith & @dstillman!

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