Copyright – symbolized "©" – is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Generally, it is "the right to copy", but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other, related rights. It is an intellectual property form (unlike the patent, the trademark, and the trade secret) applicable to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete.

Common hardware upgrades are installing additional memory (RAM), adding larger hard disks, replacing microprocessor cards or graphics cards, and installing new versions of software, although many other upgrades are often possible as well.
Common software upgrades include changing the version of an operating system, office suite, anti-virus program, or various other tools.
Common firmware upgrades include the updating of the iPod control menus, the XBox 360 dashboard, or the non-volatile flash memory that contains the embedded operating system for consumer electronics.

Application software is a subclass of computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly and thoroughly to a task that the user wishes to perform. This should be contrasted with system software which is involved in integrating a computer's various capabilities, but typically does not directly apply them in the performance of tasks that benefit the user. In this context the term application refers to both the application software and its implementation.

The opposite operation, to upload, is to send data from a local system to a remote system, FTP server, or website. For example, "Uploading a video to YouTube" means sending a video to the website.

To download is to receive data from a remote or central system, such as a webserver, FTP server, mail server, or other similar systems. A download is any file that is offered for downloading or that has been downloaded. The word's primary usage comes in the form of a verb. Increasingly, websites that offer streaming media or media displayed in-browser, such as YouTube, and which place restrictions on the ability of users to save these materials to their computers after they have been received, say that downloading is not permitted.[1] That is, "download" is used to mean "receive and save" instead of simply "receive".

Games and productivity applications often use plugin architectures which allow original and third-party publishers to add functionality. The Microsoft Flight Simulator series is famous for its downloadable aircraft add-ons.[citation needed] Web browsers use plugins to enable the presentation of new content formats without modifying the underlying web browser. The Mozilla Foundation defines add-on, in reference to Firefox and related software, as an inclusive term for a category of augmentation modules that are subdivided into plugins, extensions, themes, and search engines.

The verb license or grant license means to give permission. The noun license (or licence in British spelling) is the document demonstrating that permission. License may be granted by a party ("licensor") to another party ("licensee") as an element of an agreement between those parties. A shorthand definition of a license is "a promise (by the licensor) not to sue (the licensee)."

An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. An operating system processes system data and user input, and responds by allocating and managing tasks and internal system resources as a service to users and programs of the system. At the foundation of all system software, an operating system performs basic tasks such as controlling and allocating memory, prioritizing system requests, controlling input and output devices, facilitating Computer networking and managing files. Most operating systems come with an application that provides an interface for managing the operating system. The operating system forms a platform for other software.

The copyright infringement of software (also known as software piracy) refers to several practices when done without the permission of the copyright holder:
- creating a copy and/or selling it
- creating a copy and giving it to someone else
- renting the original software

Computer software is a general term used to describe a collection of computer programs, procedures and documentation that perform some task on a computer system.[1] The term includes application software such as word processors which perform productive tasks for users, system software such as operating systems, which interface with hardware to provide the necessary services for application software, and middleware which controls and co-ordinates distributed systems.

Original equipment manufacturer, the original manufacturer of a component for a product, which may be resold by another company.

Hardware is a general term that refers to the physical artifacts of a technology. It may also mean the physical components of a computer system, in the form of computer hardware.