When you buy a game on Steam, what kind of license do you buy? I think it's a license that allows you to play the game, i.e., use the binary. But I'm certainly not a lawyer.
Licenses are to my knowledge always part of copying, not of executing. That is: you may download a game to your computer, if you've got the permission. But Steam cannot tell you that you are only allowed to run the game on wednesdays.
I have not looked in over a year, but the Steam licenses used to be very careful about avoiding the word, "buy", altogether and instead used the word, "rent".
If you buy a cookbook, you don't need a separate license to execute the recipes.