A type of software piracy that occurs when
hardware dealers; brick-and-mortar or Internet
vendors, install an unauthorized copy of
commercial software onto a computer system. In many cases consumers will not
receive any manuals or original CD of the software but the hardware dealer may
charge for the illegal software in the total system purchase price. The
end-user, or the purchaser in this case, will then use the computer system with
pirated software, often not realizing that the software that was pre-installed
on the computer system is not legitimate. This type of piracy is most common
with operating systems, especially older
Microsoft branded operating systems such as Windows 95 and Windows 98.
Public awareness along with requiring users to
activate or register their products has helped
software manufactures deal with hard disk loading piracy.
Is Open Source the Answer to Software Piracy? Ever since the dawn of commercial software, piracy has been a problem without a realistic solution that meets the needs of both the software vendor and the end user.
Microsoft Looks to Curb Piracy in Vista Update Microsoft Corp said on Monday it would disable the two primary methods used by software pirates to illegally copy Windows Vista software in the next major update of the operating system.
Piracy's Other Price: Jobs The impact of software piracy and the illegal copying and distribution of other copyrighted works is hard to measure.
Webopedia's "Did You Know...?" Section Use this Webopedia knowledge section for an in-depth overview of specific technologies and occurrences in the areas of Computer Science, The Internet, and Computer Hardware and Software.
Webopedia's Software Category The Webopedia Software Category offers hundreds of term definitions and links related to the topic of Software.
