Not necessarily. Although it could be true in this case (and it sounds like it most likely is), that's not always the case. I downloaded Kaspersky from their website, and I have a legit, 1 year subscription key that I got for free (see the tips & tricks board in the thread that Osiris posted), and that's not on a disk, yet it's legit. That statement is about as true as this thread: http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/no-product-key-pc-case-fake-windows-166257/ =P