The United States’ government is going to pay US$50 million to a company it pirated thousands of copies of its software from.
The Dallas Morning News reports Texas-based Apptricity, which has been providing the military with software since 2004, discovered last year the government had abused its license agreement by installing it on many more machines than had been paid for.
The software is used by the military to track movements of soldiers as well as supplies and has also been used during relief efforts including for the Haiti earthquake in 2010.
An agreement, included in court documents filed in 2012, said they were licensed to use it on 500 machines, whereas there were actually 9,000 running the software.
Apptricity originally asked for US$224 million, but has settled for US$50 million so they can expand the company.
“Apptricity is now incredibly energised to use the settlement resolution as a catalyst for aggressive investment in our team, our solutions and our untapped market opportunities,” said Randy Lieberman, Apptricity’s chief financial officer.
HumanIPO reported yesterday (Thursday) Microsoft Kenya had partnered with the Kenya Copyright Board to begin cutting down on companies that pirate software such as Microsoft Office, with potential raids expected in the new year.
