U.S. Government Sued for Software Piracy, Maker Claims $600M

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A German company by the name of Bitmanagement has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Navy for allegedly installing pirated copies of a 3D virtual reality program on over a half million computers without paying for it. Who knew our government would go to such great lengths to save taxpayer money? :D

The U.S. military is being accused of installing 'pirated' copies of 3D virtual reality software onto hundreds of thousands of computers without permission. Bitmanagement, the makers of the software, accuse the Navy of willful copyright infringement and are suing the Government for more than half a billion dollars in unpaid licenses.
 
LOL, that is quite funny. Not that it suprises me of the use of pirated software but to THAT extent. Chances were pretty big that it would come out.
 
I have never heard of that software at all and I was an integration engineer for the US Navy at one point in time. I guess it was all installed at the different stations, if it was even installed. Definitely wasn't from our point.
 
The Navy has about 428,000 in uniform and that is counting the reserves. Don't think they have anywhere near one computer per person and a lot of those computers probably can't run the software. Sounds like some attorney pulled some numbers out of an aft orifice. Guessing this lawsuit will run aground fairly soon.
 
Must be why Homeland Security has been investigating Kickass Torrents and helped take down the founder ... they need to show they're tough on piracy :D
 
Don't know about the validity of this claim, but it wouldn't be the first time a US military office "pirated" German designs. The Ordnance department was ordered by the Supreme Court to pay royalties to the Mauser company and to Germany up into the 1930's for copying their patented designs in the 1903 Springfield rifle and the .30-06 rifle cartridge!
 
So, the claim is that the Navy continued installing the software on new machines while negotiations for a large scale license were ongoing.

That's not following the letter of the law, but you can see how it might happen. "it's not a problem, just go ahead with the project, we are going to be licensed any moment now anyway".
 
jardows said:
Don't know about the validity of this claim, but it wouldn't be the first time a US military office "pirated" German designs. The Ordnance department was ordered by the Supreme Court to pay royalties to the Mauser company and to Germany up into the 1930's for copying their patented designs in the 1903 Springfield rifle and the .30-06 rifle cartridge!
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Reaching a bit far back into time aren't ya?

Kinda calling out repeat offender for something creeping up on a century ago?

:p
 
Dead Parrot said:
The Navy has about 428,000 in uniform and that is counting the reserves. Don't think they have anywhere near one computer per person and a lot of those computers probably can't run the software. Sounds like some attorney pulled some numbers out of an aft orifice. Guessing this lawsuit will run aground fairly soon.
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You forget about civilian employees and the fact that many people often have 2-3 systems depending on what classification level they are working at.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Must be why Homeland Security has been investigating Kickass Torrents and helped take down the founder ... they need to show they're tough on piracy :D
Click to expand...

If you actually read that story that idiot made some noob mistakes and that's why he got caught. You have to be on your A game at all times in that scene and he slipped up for a second which was enough for him to get caught.
 
i work in defense contracting, and i havent heard of numbers that big on any single contract, ever. im sure a few exist - but literally just a few. i'd imagine this is a ploy to make the Navy say "no we didnt install it on 500k.. just 42k..." and get a payout. just my guess, though.
 
Not the first time. The army a few years ago settled a lawsuit for pirating software.

US Army Settles in $180M Software Piracy Case | Military.com

I can't seem to find the link but I want to say the air force was involved in one a few years ago and the US government was blocking the lawsuit. In that one an officer(he might have been enlisted but I'm not positive) wrote some software to do his job. He ended up selling the software to a vendor. The air force paid another company to break the protection(software was time bombed) and was refusing to pay for it. I wish I could find the links to it.
 
Grahamkracka said:
You forget about civilian employees and the fact that many people often have 2-3 systems depending on what classification level they are working at.
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I have 7 systems on my desk and I don't even work on Top Secret.
 
swatbat said:
Not the first time. The army a few years ago settled a lawsuit for pirating software.

US Army Settles in $180M Software Piracy Case | Military.com

I can't seem to find the link but I want to say the air force was involved in one a few years ago and the US government was blocking the lawsuit. In that one an officer(he might have been enlisted but I'm not positive) wrote some software to do his job. He ended up selling the software to a vendor. The air force paid another company to break the protection(software was time bombed) and was refusing to pay for it. I wish I could find the links to it.
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Air Force cracks software, carpet bombs DMCA
 
Darunion said:
Reaching a bit far back into time aren't ya?

Kinda calling out repeat offender for something creeping up on a century ago?

:p
Click to expand...
Considering how slow the US Government and the military are for any change.....
 
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