It might have been real, sorta! Some years back people figured out that if they bought an app with a bunch of downloads allowed as if they were a big company with multiple computers at different locations to use the product they could sell copies-most sent it digitally but some went to the trouble of getting counterfeit disks and boxes made. So someone bought a copy for a big discount and installed it and the registration worked and so did the software.=Happy customer-for a while. But then when the software companies caught on to what was going on they started to classify those copies as not being real and blocked updates, reinstalls etc.
One article in a computer magazine did say that at least one software company also felt sorry for the victims that bought the copies and for a fee would give them a new activation number, register them as a customer and allow them to keep using the software.

For a while that is how some of the "Student and Educator" versions of software worked. Each teacher or student paid a reduced fee and got to download and register the software through the school or by providing proof they were a teacher or student at a school/school district that purchased the app for use in classes. I paid for a few apps for our daughter to use when she took some computer classes that came that way. Then they went over to separate disks and activation numbers mailed to the students because they found some students were letting their friends install the software on their computers. The new versions were for two computers only, one desktop and one laptop.