A furniture manufacturer in northern Portugal that was ordered to pay €328,950 for using cracked copies of ALPHACAM has become insolvent. The damages were awarded to Planit Software, part of Hexagon, by the Lisbon Intellectual Property Court in a judgment of 4 July 2025. Hexagon’s claim is now part of the insolvency proceedings, and how much it recovers depends on the insolvency plan, which is still awaiting approval.

From court-ordered audit to judgment

In September 2023 the court granted Hexagon’s request for preliminary measures. It ordered the company to stop using the software and authorized an audit of its premises. The court-appointed expert found five unlicensed copies of ALPHACAM 2013, 2014 and 2021 on four networked computers. Many of them had been installed with a crack attributed to the hacker group “Lizards Never Die”.

“A former employee did it” did not convince the court

The company argued that a former employee, who had worked there for only three months, installed the software without its knowledge. The court rejected this. The software was on four computers while that employee used only one, and another employee confirmed in court that ALPHACAM was installed on all four machines, including his own. The court concluded that the company knew about the software and used it in its daily business.

What the court ordered

  • Damages of €328,950: five copies at the license price of €65,790 each.
  • Stop using the software and destroy all illegal copies, under the supervision of Hexagon’s representative.
  • A penalty of €1,000 for each day of further unlicensed use.
  • Publication of the decision in a national newspaper, at the company’s expense.
  • Three quarters of the court costs.

Why it matters

  • Damages follow the full license price. The court valued every unlicensed copy at the publisher’s license price.
  • Blaming an employee does not work. A company is responsible for the software on its own computers.
  • Unlicensed use is the expensive option. Instead of buying licenses, the company now faces the full license value in damages, daily penalties, legal costs and a public judgment, and is now insolvent.

ITCA’s Western & Central Europe team supported Hexagon throughout the case and gave evidence in court. The names of individuals have been redacted from the published judgment.

Read the judgment

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Header photo: Metro Centric, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped and toned).