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 registertheir 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.
