The term came from the word software or wares as in a vendor selling wares. But the people who deal in pirated software typically use a z wherever you would normally put an s as in warez, or thievez. To me the word means lamerz. Hackers and warez people are not the same, although it usually will take a hacker to crack the s.n. or dongle code, and so we have another term, crackerz. Some warez are just software that has been purchased and then shared with whoever wants it like Poser models and such. Lots of shareware programs are cracked and handed out. Usually it's like a contest to see who can get the cleanest out the fastest, and some of the warez groups take great pride in what they do, even to the point of writing their own install for the program they have stolen. They are usually pretty sharp, and lots of people who do warez actually work for the company that they steal the products from. I did some research and was amazed at how many people who actually did the code for the dongles and s.n. protection were then writing a back door for the cracks. Most people know what a dongle is, but for those who don't it's a device that you put in a port on your computer, typically the printer port, then your printer cable is connected to the dongle. The dongle has it's own s.n. and you must have it installed for the program to function. Lightwave has a dongle. So does Shave and a Haircut for Lightwave, you can download the program but you then must purchase the dongle for it to work. I have a ton of them. Warez people say that they do the dongle cracks because it's bad to have that many devices daisy-chained from your printer port, which is bull, I have a printer cable extension, and the dongles attach to that, so I have had no problems with them. There are a lot of folks out there who don't know what warez are, and most who don't are nervous about asking questions. In some of my classes we have done a whole session on seeing how easy it is to get them, and the downside of warez. Basically they are not worth the time to download them, even beyond the fact that you don't get tech support or upgrades, they are usually either riddled with viruses or you end up in porn Hell. Also there are lots of keyloggers out there that get your passwords as you type them in. I don't know about most folks but no program is worth having 65 porn windows open on my system...lol Anyway T, that's probably more than you wanted to know, and there is a lot more info on it out there. Just do a search on hackers, hackerz, warez, crackers and crackerz. Bottom line is these people are what contributes to the high cost we pay for software, they are thieves, and the honest people end up paying for their use of the program. I'd rather buy it, if it has bugs they will eventually be dealt with and I will be able to download for free whatever fix has been created to take care of the problems. If a company can't stay afloat due to software piracy we all lose out. Marque