Copyrighted software licensing agreement blatantly violated by Obamacare site

As we previously reported, the Obamacare website - Healthcare.gov has experienced some technically difficulties; that may be the least of the problems it seems for, as some people are referring, the sloppily thrown together health care site. Add in some copyright infringement and voila here we are.

According to the Weekly Standard, the script in question is called DataTables, a very long and complex piece of website software used for formatting and presenting data. DataTables was developed by a British company called SpryMedia which licenses the open-source software freely to anyone who complies with the licensing agreement. A note at the bottom of the DataTables.net website says: "DataTables designed and created by SpryMedia © 2008-2013." The company explains the license for using the software on that website [emphasis added]:
DataTables is free, open source software that you can download and use for whatever purpose you wish, on any and as many sites you want. It is free for you to use! DataTables is available under two licenses: GPL v2 license or a BSD (3-point) license, with which you must comply (to do this, basically keep the copyright notices in the software).

The software, a version of which is available at DataTables.net, contains the copyright notice in the opening lines of the code:



At the Healthcare.gov website, however, the opening lines of the script appear as follows, with the copyright and all references to the author and SpryMedia deleted; a search of the entire script does not turn up the missing lines either:



The Weekly Standard contacted SpryMedia for comment. A representative for the company said that they were "extremely disappointed" to see the copyright information missing and will be pursuing it further with the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that runs the Healthcare.gov site.

Nothing to see here, move along!