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United Kingdom
United Kingdom
Key definition
On-premise definition What does On-premise mean? In legal and procurement practice, on-premise (also called on‑premises or self‑hosted) describes software or IT infrastructure installed and operated at the customer’s own physical sites, rather than hosted in the cloud. It is a descriptive industry term, not defined in legislation or case law, and its usage is broadly consistent across England & Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland. Key legal features include: deployment at premises owned, leased or otherwise controlled by the customer (including customer‑managed data centres or co‑location space); greater customer control over hardware, networks and data; and contract terms focussing on installation, configuration, access to “Customer Sites”,...
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Disabling devices in on‑premise B2B software: UK legal, contractual and regulatory risks, and drafting and practical guidance
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Practice notes
This Practice Note
This Practice Note explores the use of non-contractual mechanisms by software suppliers to halt or restrict the operation of on-premise software in business-to-business licences, the resulting legal considerations, and the real-world impact on drafting relevant software licences. It introduces a range of disabling tools:
- Time bombs
- Logic bombs
- Back door/trap door
- Fork locks
- Remote control and switching off, or ‘deprovisioning’
Where a customer breaches licence terms, or fails to pay licence or support charges, the supplier can pursue legal action. Yet litigation brings expense and uncertainty, and may strain the customer–supplier relationship. As a result, a supplier may favour a more immediate, practical approach: deploying disabling devices to stop the software from running, triggered remotely or automatically by the supplier. For most developers, such features are straightforward to create and embed. Activating (or threatening to activate) these tools can give the supplier significant leverage over customers, especially where the software is critical to the business. That said, use of these devices has fallen markedly in recent years, in part due to a shift in the way software is licensed. First, there was a move towards...
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Web page updated on 21/05/2026
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