Anti-Piracy Glossary

Copyright: An intangible right granted by statute to the author or originator of certain intellectual property including software, whereby, for a limited period, the exclusive privilege is given to the person to make copies of the same for publication and sale.

Copyright Infringement: The unauthorized use of material which is protected by copyright law in a manner that violates one of the original copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.

Product Activation: A license validation procedure required to verify the authenticity of the product key and to ensure that the product key is not being used for unauthorized installations. Product activation is a way to make sure that NortonLifeLock programs are legally licensed.

Software License Agreement: A contract between a producer and a user of computer software which grants the user a software license. Most often, a software license agreement indicates the terms under which an end-user may utilize the licensed software, in which case the agreement is called an end-user license agreement or EULA.

Product Key: A specific software-based key to identify that the copy of a program is original. It consists of a series of alpha numeric characters. This sequence is typically entered by the user during the installation of the software, and is then passed to a verification function in the program.

Statutory Damages: Statutory damages are pre-established damages provided in the U.S. Copyright Law that allow a copyright holder who succeeds with a claim of infringement to receive an amount of compensation per work. Statutory damages can in some cases be significantly more than the actual damages suffered by the rights holder or the profits of the infringer.

Software Upgrade: An upgrade is a new version of, or an addition to, the software that is already installed or in use.

SPAM: Unsolicited commercial email (UCE) or unsolicited bulk email (UBE). Some people refer to this kind of communication as junk email to equate it with the paper junk mail that comes through the government operated mail carriers.

Peer-to-peer network: On the Internet, peer-to-peer (referred to as P2P) is a type of transient Internet network that allows a group of computer users with the same networking program to connect with each other and directly access files from one another's hard drives.

Product support: A service that provides the end-user with a resource for information and assistance regarding legitimate product use.

End-user: A person who uses the software.

Service/subscription period: Time period for which an end-user receives live updates and support.