By Grant Gross
IDG News Service - A trial version of a 3D CAD software package includes "phone-home" functionality that allows the vendor to contact downloaders months later and demand thousands of dollars in licensing fees, according to a class-action lawsuit filed recently in Massachusetts.
Plaintiff Miguel Pimentel, downloaded a trial version of TransMagic's CAD conversion software in 2010, then deleted it the same day, according to the lawsuit. About three months later, ITCA, a Curacao firm specializing in intellectual property enforcement, contacted Pimentel and demanded he pay $10,000 in licensing fees plus recurring maintenance fees or face a $150,000 lawsuit.
ITCA, which lists Microsoft, Siemens and McAfee among its clients, used "various coercive techniques" to attempt to get Pimentel to pay for the software, according to the complaint in the lawsuit, filed March 30 in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. "ITCA made it clear it knew where [Pimentel] worked and, as long as payment was made, ITCA would not disclose the 'piracy' to his employer," the complaint said.
The tracking software alleged in the case goes beyond reasonable efforts of software vendors to protect themselves, said Scott Kamber, a lawyer representing Pimentel. ITCA efforts were "pretty aggressive," said Kamber of KamberLaw in New York. "This is certainly a version of DRM [digital rights management] gone too far."
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