Software theft

This article should be merged with  Software Piracy

Software theft is the unauthorised duplication and/or use of computer software. This usually means unauthorised copying, either by individuals for use by themselves or their friends or, less commonly, by companies who then sell the illegal copies to users. Many kinds of software protection have been invented to try to reduce software theft but, with sufficient effort it is always possible to bypass or "crack" the protection, and software protection is often annoying for legitimate users.

Software theft was estimated for 1994 to have cost $15 billion (USD) in worldwide lost revenues to software publishers. In the UK, for example, it is a serious offence under the Business Software Alliance, software audit, software law.