In a delicious fit of double irony, the United States’ Navy is being targeted by a massive lawsuit, alleging it pirated $596 million worth of software from a German software development company specializing in geographic data visualization. The Navy, who often combats real-life maritime pirates, had obtained 38 licensed copies of the BS Contact Geo software in 2011, but by 2015, had pirated it across 558,466 machines without ever upgrading the original license.
BS Contact Geo creates photorealistic renditions of real-life cities and landmarks by supplying geographic information systems with highly-accurate terrain data. It’s useful in urban planning, and as far as the Navy is concerned, constructing flight simulators.
The lawsuit, written from the perspective of the aggrieved party, claims the Navy requested that Bitmanagement Software disable the DRM to test the software across its full range of equipment. Satisfied with the pilot, the two organizations entered into sales negotiations. While the negotiations were pending, the Navy installed the BS Contact Geo software onto at least 104,922 machines without Bitmanagement’s knowledge or consent.
One year later, Bitmanagement received notifications that the Navy disabled the “flexwrap” feature it used to track the software’s deployment, which was a further violation of the trial license originally given to the service branch. Hoping to bring the Navy’s deployment into legal compliance, Bitmanagement had even offered to settle for a per-seat license fee of $1,067.76, but the Navy continued to operate without consideration.
Other evidence supporting the company’s claim points to a job post published by the Navy last year, calling for a programmer capable of performing software development and configuring the Naval Facilities Engineering Command’s Facilities Integrated Product Support (IPS) Program. It reads:
“The primary system that the incumbent will support is SPIDERS 3D, a web-based tool to visualize in three dimensions (3D) new weapon platform models in spatial context with 3D models of existing U.S. Navy infrastructure and facilities. It is a JavaScript and X3D based tool served from an Oracle supported Navy enterprise server system to client desktop and laptop machines. BS Contact Geo is a web browser plugin that is the built-in 3D viewer for SPIDERS 3D .”
More specifically, the position seeks a candidate that can establish a link between existing software and the SPIDER 3D visualization tool, acknowledged in the job post as being based on the commercial version of BS Content Geo.
Source: ExtremeTech
Image source: Techweekeurope
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