US Navy pays German company $154,400 after losing piracy lawsuit

guest · Nov 24, 2022

By Rob Thubron - November 24, 2022

In brief: The US Navy is a pirate, according to the Court of Federal Claims. But this isn't the skull & crossbones, Blackbeard-style of piracy. The military branch has lost a court case over software copyright infringement and must pay the developer $154,400. But it's not all bad news for the Navy: the company filing the lawsuit initially wanted $600 million.
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German company Bitmanagement Software brought a federal lawsuit against the Navy back in 2016. The complaint claimed the Navy agreed to license the 3D virtual reality software BS Contact Geo on a limited and experimental basis in 2011 and 2012. The trial involved installing the program on 38 computers for testing and integration into the Navy's systems.

So impressed was the Navy with the software that it allegedly led the developer to believe it planned on purchasing additional licenses for large-scale deployment in 2013.
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Bitmanagement says that despite paying for just 38 licenses, the Navy installed BS Contact Geo on at least 558,466 machines.

As the licensing fees for each piece of software cost around $1,067 at the time, Bitmanagement felt it was owed $596 million for the use of its software, leading to a lawsuit against the government.
The Register writes that Bitmanagement's original suit was dismissed in September 2019, only to be revived by the Federal Circuit in February 2021.
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Importantly, David Kennedy, a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) for Pricewaterhouse Coopers, determined that the price per license amounts to $200, not $1,067.
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US Navy pays German company $154,400 after losing piracy lawsuit

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