warez

Noun

warez (plural warez)

1. (Internet slang) Illegally obtained or compromised software.

   Hey dude, I've got some cool new warez!

Warez refers primarily to copyrighted works traded in violation of copyright law. The term generally refers to illegal releases by organized groups, as opposed to file sharing between friends or large groups of people with similar interest using a darknet. It usually does not refer to commercial for-profit software counterfeiting. This term was initially coined by members of the various computer underground circles, but has since become commonplace among Internet users and the mass media.

Warez distribution

Warez is often distributed outside of The Scene (a collection of warez groups) by Torrents (files including tracker info, piece size, uncompressed file size, comments, and vary in size from 1 k, to 400 k.) uploaded to a popular P2P website by an associate or friend of the cracker or cracking crew. An nfo or FILE ID.DIZ is often made to promote who created the release. It is then leeched (downloaded) by users of the Tracker and spread to other sharing sites using P2P, or other sources such as Newsgroups. From there, it can be downloaded by millions of users all over the world. Often, one release is duplicated, renamed, then re-uploaded to different sites so that eventually, it can become impossible to trace the original file. Another increasingly popular method of distributing Warez is via One-click hosting websites. In the early 1990s, warez were often traded on cassette tapes with different groups and published on bulletin boards that had a warez section.