Posted on 08/30/2008 7:26:53 AM PDT by MichiganMan
Not very long ago, in a land not at all far away, there was a little company called Blueport. It held the copyright on a piece of software that the US Air Force liked using for logistics. Blueport protected its software with a time bomb—a bit of code that made the software self-destruct when the license expired. That date was approaching, and Blueport wanted to negotiate a new license with the USAF—and you know, get paid.
Instead, it got a bit of the ol’ shock and awe. The Air Force not only didn’t pay up, it paid big contractor SAIC ($2.5 million in lobbying in 2007) to reverse engineer Blueport’s program and disable the time bomb. The Air Force also paid SAIC to rewrite the program, and by rewrite I mean simply cut and paste any of the original code that seemed useful.
Unsurprisingly, Blueport sued. The facts of the case were never disputed—the government not only violated copyright, it turned the DMCA out on a street corner...
(Excerpt) Read more at maximumpc.com ...
It’s be my guess that some person working for the Air Force was promised or wast trying to get a job with SAIC.
Couldn’t they sue SAIC as well?
Dunno. What would be the status of a company contracted directly by the government? It may be the the immunity is extended in such cases. I would assume that that avenue was at least considered by Blueport's lawyers.
‘What would be the status of a company contracted directly by the government?”
Generally you are responsible for your own company regardless of who you contract with. The govt requires you to carry insurance and sometimes provide bonds. But I’m not a lawyer.
My guess is they were simply outspent and suing SAIC is beyond their financial power. SAIC probably has more lawyers than this company has total employees.
Their best bet is to go to Congress and seek some sort of support. The big defense contractors are pretty ruthless to small companies.
This concept is old.
Happend all the time with program packages throughtout the years. Progammers can’t just sell the use but sell the actual item.
The airforce was not selling the package, they were rewriting it for their own use.
no different than any of the other cases on this issue.
The airforce was not selling the package, they were rewriting it for their own use.
Yeah, but you understand that the DMCA specifically forbids overcoming copy-protection through reverse-engineering (or any other means, for that matter) which is what SAIC did to use the code they copied.
There are ways, which take a little more effort when incorporated into the writing of the code, make reverse engineering difficult, if not impossible. This would be a wonderful text book example of why you need to scramble, and encrypt your source code when writing programs for the Government. I suspect, in the future, this will be standard operating procedure when writing any software for the government. Yeah, they screwed this company by not acting in good faith, but in the long run, they will probably not be able to do this again.
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed freepmail me or post a message here.
they screwed this company by not acting in good faith, but in the long run, they will probably not be able to do this again.
And as a taxpayer, you gotta love it - NOT.
echoes of INSLAW?
First, you can’t sue the Government without its permission.
Second, Copyrights and Patents aren’t necessarily applicable to the armed services.
Third, did the company want more than a couple million for the rights?
Yeah, I think that was the point of the article. Laws for thee, but not for me.
Second, Copyrights and Patents aren’t necessarily applicable to the armed services.
I've not seen where they aren't. However given the above distinction, it wouldn't matter if they are applicable since it allows the government to disregard all copyright with impunity.
Third, did the company want more than a couple million for the rights?
No mention of what the company was paid or wanted. The couple of million referenced was how much was spent on lobbying in 2007 by the company that was selected by the USAF to get around Blueport protection of its code.
They are not. Anything produced by the government is by nature public domain. However, a contractor can write something and assign the copyright to the government.
That said, most software written for the government (not just written and then sold to) becomes the property of the government. That the government had the source for SAIC to copy says this might have been the case. In that case the government had its own software reverse-engineered.
I thought that omission was very interesting. The Air Force boys aren't stupid I don't think that they would have paid out a couple of million if they could have gotten it from the original company for a couple of hundred thousand.
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