Legal Question in Technology Law in Texas

Re: Legality of portable hard drives?

The EULA is not generally violated by loading the software onto a portable hard drive and using it from that portable hard drive on any computer to which the hard drive is removably attached, PROVIDED you do not have the software on any other hard drive of any computer. Basically, the software can be put on a single hard drive accessible by only one machine at a time.

It would be a violation of the EULA to copy software onto a portable hard drive from an internal hard drive without removing it from the portable hard drive, as that results in having the software on two hard drives. You can generally make a single backup copy of the software without liability, provided the backup copy is not in simultaneous use on a second machine.

Notice that the EULA language you quote appears to have a loophole in that it allows loading the software on a network-shared hard drive, since it would be on a single hard drive of a single machine and would be run from that hard drive.

But, note that EULA language would appear to prohibit P2P sharing of the software since then there would be concurrent copies on two (or two million) hard drives and the software would be run by two (or two million) computers at one time, and this makes sense because that would cost the software producer lots of sales.

This is general advice. Your specific EULA may have other terms that alter the above.