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Australian Police Are Caught Pirating Again

The Aussie police are clearly not setting the right example when it comes to copyright infringement.

In 2008 computers of the South Australian police force’s IT branch were found to contain hundreds of pirated movies, and now it appears they pirate software as well.

It is doubtful, however, that any arrests will be made.

The Australian reports:

“The primary claim in the breach of copyright civil suit is against NSW Police, which Micro Focus claims, copied its software and handed it out to third party agencies without its approval.’

‘It had licences to install ViewNow on up to 6500 computers across its organisation but Micro Focus claims that 16,000 copies in total were in use.’

‘According to the statement of claim file by Micro Focus, NSW Police is accused of making and distributing unauthorised copies of ViewNow, which is used to access the computerised operations policing system application, dubbed COPS.’

Micro Focus calls for a thorough investigation to determine the extent of their losses, so they can file for damages.

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  • Joe

    cool

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=754363628 Neil McCormick

    So why are we NOT surprised? One law for the public and one law for the hmmmm now what should we call them?

    • Anonymous

      Well I mean, think how Australia was brought up as a nation. It began with Europe’s smartest criminals :)
      First Josef Fritzl (basement dad) and now this… Tsk tsk Australia. Get it together & STOP GETTING CAUGHT LIKE THE REST OF US!

      • Loltastic retard

        Austria /= Australia.

        • http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja

          Yeah, he missed for a few thousand kilometers. Or so it seems. Still, the comment is brilliant ;)

      • Hermes

        Crime is in their blood

        Australia was founded as a penal colony

        • SickOfThis

          We’re not all Anglo-Saxon, idiot.

      • Nick

        Josef Fritzl (basement dad) was AUSTRIAN not AUSTRALIAN. Austria is in Europe, Australia is a large continent in the Pacific Ocean. Idiot.

      • Guest

        hahahaha, NO KANGAROOS IN AUSTRIA

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jason-DefCon-Ebeling/616024625 Jason DefCon Ebeling

    saw the word Australia and I was like FUCK! what now, then I read it and I was like HELLS YEAH LOL

    Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!

    • http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja

      Well, you do have to protect commercial exploit of software. The probable reasoning here is “the population is ‘profiting’ on the software by getting a safer environment on their streets”. Gotta love how capitalism twists things for money heh.

      But in the end one has to wonder why the fuck the police (or any1 else) has to pay for every single machine when there’s no real profit involved.

    • Ferenc

      Oy! Oy! Oy!

  • I am a sausage not a hotdog

    lol too funny.

  • police brutality

    Victorian and NSW police simply would have shot, or stiched up the software company exec’s not so long ago.

    The times are a changing!

  • Anonymous

    Maybe they’ll send FACT over to order the police to arrest themselves. Any possible outcome from that would be hilarious.

  • Cavelord

    They aren’t going through the proper channels. They need to pay gov’t officials first, and then get them to pass laws, that will allow normal corporations to go in and take the computers without any police assistance. This is how the “hollywood corps” do it, and they set the standards for taking down pirates…lol!

  • AnonBuddhist

    time to revolt.

  • MavEtJu

    It’s a licensing volume issue, not a pirating issue. Boring.

    • Manchausd

      its the same things as someone buying a copy of a movie or whatever and installing it on hundreds or thousands of machines…. weather they do it through the internet or through self installs themselves, same …

  • Colincarr99

    Do as I say, not as I do! ;-)

  • http://nannirk.net/ Marius Krinnan

    “Micro Focus calls for a thorough investigation to determine the extent of their losses”
    The problem is, there aren’t any losses. They didn’t buy enough licenses. If people choose not to buy, that’s not a loss, because you didn’t have that to begin with.

  • Anonymous

    Finally (48 hours) time limit to buy.

    LV Muffler $ 5.99
    LV Bags $ 19.9
    LV Wallet $ 6.55
    Armani Glasses $ 5.99
    LV Belt $ 6.9

    Buy addresses-
    — tntn.us
    Tips (48 hours after the special product is invalid)

    /’/…/…./…../?
    ……..(‘(…?…?….?~ /’)
    ……………………..’../
    ………………………./
    ……………………..(
    …….

  • townie2

    so whats the difference between this, and downloading, say, a commercial or corporate licensed anti-virus from a torrent site? either they are both pirates or their not.

  • Anonymous

    lol, pretty funny when you think about it. But I guess they are like American cops, “Do as I say, not as I do” attitude. http://www.privacy-web.no.tc

  • Pingback: The Definitive History Of Science Fiction And Fantasy Cop Shows » More News NOW!

  • Joe-is-a-spass

    Sue the police force until they don’t have a penny to investigate any online copyright infringement ever again or for the next 10 years.

    • Cavelord

      Haven’t you heard: Police don’t do the investigations anymore, they just let private corporations do it for them, and then go along for the ride. They are getting so lazy now, they don’t even go along for the ride anymore…do it yourself, and tell us about it later.

  • GNU/Linux

    GO OPEN SOURCE!
    GO OPEN SOURCE!
    GO OPEN SOURCE!

    Problem solved.

  • MAx
  • Aussie

    To be fair, the Sth Aussie police case was a completely separate affair to this one, bit unfair to connect them in any way.

    Having said that, it doesnt surprise me in the slightest this happened. Govt departments here are essentially independant of each other, with minimal joint efforts in terms of licensing software. Thats changing at the federal level (where some departments were paying 300% more than others for the same software) but that joint approach hasnt flowed down to the state departments as yet.

    What I expect has happened is that they got their licenses, rolled out the software, then expanded on who used them and how, without checking they were actually allowed. Reality is it would have cost about $10 per license if they had bulk ordered.

    I doubt AFACT (our MAFIAA, FACT, etc) will make any noise, its not in their best interests to piss off the cops…

  • http://disqus.com/ Rob8urcakes

    Copywrong law bites the ass of law enforcement. Swwwweeeeeeeeeeeetttt.

    The stupidity of these outdated, archaic copywrong laws is YET AGAIN exemplified – but this time with a hugely embarrassing event that highlights what’s so wrong with the current system ….

    FAIL

  • Snizzel

    yes sew the police so they can be more broke go go greedy fucking industries

  • Moxie

    can we please try not to inspire idea for senator Con-man’s censorship scheme

  • dadahuluwa huluwa
    • Lbsldvg

      This is my job. I am sorry too.

      Flagged!!!

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

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