Symantec will add digital-rights-management technology to its entire 2004 consumer product line, requiring customers to activate products such as Norton Antivirus 2004.
In April, Symantec said it had added an undisclosed DRM software package to selected versions of Norton Antivirus 2003, which the company termed a “pilot” program at the time.
Now, the company said it will apply the activation technology across all of its consumer product lines, including the Norton Antivirus 2004 package Symantec announced earlier this week.
“The reason were doing product activation is that there is a huge amount of piracy in Symantec products,” said Phil Weiler, a spokesman for Symantec. “Companies are offering pirated versions of our security products to protect (users) computers and the pirated versions dont provide protection the consumers think theyre getting.”
In April, Symantec filed suit against Maryland Internet Marketing alleging trademark and copyright infringement, false advertising, unfair competition and interference with prospective economic advantage.