copyright
copyrighted material used by a commercial entity
<p>Can a copyrighted material be used by a company employees if it is not a part of a commercial product?</p>

<p>There are two ways in which &quot;commercial&quot; is relevant to copyright. First, it might be a factor in a software license, for example &quot;may only be used for non-commercial purposes&quot;. This is most often found on free or discount software, so you would have to look at the exact wording of the license.</p>
<p>The second is, in the US, one can &quot;use&quot; (copy) protected items to a limited extent if that usage is &quot;fair use&quot;. For example, you can copy a sentence of two from a novel in a review of the novel, without obtaining permission of the copyright owner. The distinction between a non-commercial purpose and a commercial purpose figures into the determination of &quot;fair use&quot;, whereby a commercial use is less likely to be considered &quot;fair use&quot;. There isn't a distinction between the bosses use and an employee's use, that is, being the boss does not change your rights w.r.t. fair use.</p>
<p>Whether or not a &quot;use&quot; potentially infringes copyright depends on the specific action that constitutes the use. Copyright restricts copying. You may use a printed book as a weight – that does not infringe copyright. If a computer has a program installed on it, anyone can &quot;use&quot; that copy, because they are not making another copy. You cannot freely use the installation media to install it on another computer without a license to do so, so you have to check whether e.g. only the boss can install the program on his computer, or can employees do likewise (an individual license vs. a site license).</p>
