The unauthorised copying of software refers to software piracy. Almost all software programs are licensed to use on one one computer or by one user at any point in time. When the customer purchases the software, he becomes a licensed user rather than an owner. The customer is only allowed to make copies of the program for backup purposes only, and it is illegal to make copies to distribute to other people.

Software piracy are so much easier to spread nowadays. This is due to the  widely accessible Internet channels, usually through peer-to-peer file sharing systems
and pirate distribution sites that make software available for download for free.

Software piracy is a huge illegal business, running into billions of dollars. These  includes the sale of imitation software on Internet auction and classified ads Web sites. Imitation software which overrides  the registration license code needed to run the software properly
are rampant and are otherwise known as Warez. The imitation software which usually comes with a nice, almost perfect retail box similar to the real box makes it very hard to differentiate between the real and the imitation software.

There are many people who bought these imitation software sincerely believing that they have bought the genuine stuff. And the losers are the software authors and companies who made the software. Increasingly, there are even spyware and trojan horses that are attached to these imitation software, which will hard the buyer's computer.

So, imitation software is hard to stamp out. Users should make a conscious effort to buy the real stuff from reputatble ecommerce shops online and offline in the brick and mortar environment.