Warez

Pronounced wayrz or wayrss, refers to commercial software that has been pirated and made available to the public via a BBS or the Internet. Typically, the pirate (also called a cracker) has figured out a way to de-activate the copy-protection or registration scheme used by the software. Note that the use and distribution of warez software is illegal. In contrast, shareware and freeware may be freely copied and distributed.