U.S. Government Caught Pirating Military Software, Settles For $50 Million

[Recursion]

http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-caught-pirating-military-software-pays-50-million-to-settle-131127/

EDIT when I noticed the last paragraph there...

While Apptricity was happy to have the Government as a client, the company was shocked to find out that the army had secretly installed thousands of unlicensed copies of the software. This unauthorized use was discovered by accident during Strategic Capabilities Planning 2009, when the U.S. Army Program Director stated that thousands of devices used Apptricity software.

As it turned out, the army had installed pirated copies of the software on 93 servers and more than 9,000 standalone devices. With license fees of $1.35 million per server and $5,000 per device, Apptricity calculated that the Government owed the company $224 million in unpaid fees.

To recoup the missing revenue the software company filed a lawsuit at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. It accused the Government of willful copyright infringement, while actively concealing these infringements from Apptricity.

...

“Now that this process is behind us, it is envisioned the Apptricity and Army relationship will continue to grow exponentially,” says Tim McHale, an Apptricity senior adviser and retired major-general.

And there's your problem

Through many contracts -- venal, wasteful -- oversight was minimal
For he is the very model of a modern major general...

[NYC_SKP]

1. What would be the cost if they had to pay fines, too?