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US Military Sued for Software Piracy
The US military is accused of installing unauthorized copies of 3D virtual reality software onto thousands of computers without the permission of the copyright owner. Bitmanagement, the software makers, accused the Navy of willful copyright infringement and decided to sue the US government for $600m in unpaid licenses.
The lawsuit centers around a 3D virtual reality app created by the German company Bitmanagement, which the Navy agreed to license for 38 computers for the purposes of testing, trial runs, and integration into its systems. After the tests, the parties started negotiating the licensing of additional computers, but prior to any deals, the software makers learned that the Navy had already installed it on more than 558,000 computers, without their permission. Moreover, the US military allegedly disabled the software tracking on how many computers it is being used, thus effectively preventing the software vendor from stopping the unauthorized copying.
Bitmanagement claimed that the willful copyright infringement has damaged its business and rights and so it now demands compensation to a total of nearly $600 million. Installing the software onto a single PC cost about $1,070 at the time, so the software makers claim they are entitled to at least $596,000,000 in unpaid licensing fees. By the way, this is more than the damages MegaUpload have caused to the US copyright holders, while the MegaUpload case was billed by the FBI as one of the “largest criminal copyright cases” ever.
The industry observers remind that it wasn’t the first time that the Navy has been caught pirating software: several years ago the US military was accused of running unlicensed logistics software, which ended up with $50m settlement.
Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.
