Software piracy is a major threat to the production of quality software. Every stolen copy of a program represents lost income to the software developer. To cover the investment made in developing the software, the developer must then charge more for each copy. This just creates a vicious circle, however, because when software is more expensive the incentive to steal increases. It is for this reason that all software users have an interest in the protection of computer software.
Software has an intangible quality.
You cannot pick it up and hold it. You can send it to someone and still have it yourself. It is only relatively recently that there has been legislation and legal judgements that have recognised software as property. The term software protection is used to describe all means that a software vendor can use to ensure that only those copies of software that have been legally purchased are run by users. It is worth noting at this point that there is no such thing as a perfect software protection mechanism.