The US army has been forced to pay out $50 million (£30.6m) for copyright infringement after admitting it installed software on thousands of devices without forking out for it.

Texas-based Apptricity produces logistics software which the military uses to manage the movement of troops, transport and other supplies across the globe.

“Field commanders were focused on the mission-critical nature of Apptricity software and the need to protect warfighters and facilitate mission objectives,” said Apptricity CEO Tim Garcia, in a canned statement.

“Our battle-tested integrated logistics software performed so well that it went viral.”

Going viral is one thing but installing 100 server and 9,000 device licenses across the globe without paying is quite another, so the 80-man software biz was forced to pursue the errant customer for payment.

continue article http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/29/apptricity_us_army_copyrigh...