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.
See software piracy.
Also see"Is
Software Ownership the Same as Licensing?" in the in the "Did
You Know..." section of Webopedia.
