Licensing Kickstart ROMs for Raspberry Pi

[haywirepc]

Now I really have to buy a pi... I was going to anyway, but with all the amiga stuff with them, its a great little board to play with.

[cgutjahr]

Do you believe they own the copyright, or do they just have a license?

Okay, I'll try to sum it up for you (believe it or not, the following summary is the simplified version):

There is only one entity that claims to own the Kickstart ROMs (amongst other things): Amiga Inc., available (sometimes) at amiga.com. There are several problems though:

1. They licensed most of the rights regarding the Kickstarts, including the right to distribute them in anything but simple emulator-autostarting-a-single-game packages or Amiga-in-a-joystick type hardware, to another entity exclusively: Hyperion Entertainment. Both parties hate each other with a vengeance, and neither trusts the agreement between them (which is available here) or intends to abide by the rules defined in it. You could ask Hyperion for a license, but they're probably just waiting for some idiot who's testing if Amiga Inc. can still pay its lawyers.

2. In an effort to avoid paying taxes, landlords and former employees or partners, Amiga Inc. moved, restructered and renamed itself half a dozen times in the last decade. At the end, nobody cared enough to bring them down, but you won't find many people who wouldn't agree that some really shady stuff has been going on. Even if they did own the IP in question at one point in time, it would probably be easy to finish them off for good. And that's not even counting the paperwork for all these IP transfers and sales, which is a horrible mess (we know, because it was documented in a court case).

3. Nobody knows, if Amiga Inc. ever owned the Kickstart ROMs. They allegedly bought them from Gateway, who allegedly bought them from the bancrupt ESCOM in 1997, who had allegedly acquired them when buying the bancrupt Commodore in 1995. But in 1997, a German judge ruled that ESCOM didn't provide any paperwork that proved they acquired the Kickstart rights along with the trademarks etc. That doesn't mean they didn't have such paperwork lying around somewhere (the company was long defunct when the judge made his decision), but it was only halfheartedly fixed during the sale to Gateway a few months later.

Basically, you will probably have to contact Hyperion, or maybe Amiga Inc. (depending on the exact use for the ROMs you have in mind, see the agreement). If you contact the latter, don't expect an answer unless you promise to provide tons of money or to hurt Hyperion real bad. If you contact the former, expect paranoia and greed, and make sure you don't mind being used as a guinea pig.

Your best bet might be the effort to create free ROMs using the open source AmigaOS clone AROS. Not there yet, but they're getting closer.

[persia]

So it would seem that the ROMs are the property of AsiaRIM or who ever owns Commodore rights and that both AI and Hyperion are pirates...

[cgutjahr]

So it would seem that the ROMs are the property of AsiaRIM or who ever owns Commodore rights and that both AI and Hyperion are pirates...

No. Asiarim (who might or might not own the Commodore trademark) belongs to the 2nd string of companies more or less inheriting ESCOM (one string for the Amiga stuff, one string for the rest of the Commodore IP).

If ESCOM owned the Kickstart ROMs, they were transfered to Gateway. If ESCOM didn't own the ROMs, they certainly didn't end up with Tulip/Yeahronimo/Asiarim.

[persia]

If Escom didn't get the rights then they remained with the rump of Commodore, which eventually went the Asiarim route.  The copyright went one way or the other, it didn't remain in limbo.

[cgutjahr]

If Escom didn't get the rights then they remained with the rump of Commodore, which eventually went the Asiarim route.

There's no direct connection between Commodore and Asiarim. Whatever Asiarim bought (they didn't actually buy it, long story) came from Yeahronimo, who bought it from Tulip, who bought it from... ESCOM. If ESCOM didn't own the Kickstart rights, there's no way Asiarim could own them.

The copyright went one way or the other, it didn't remain in limbo.

Exactly, but for a start we don't know if ESCOM owned the rights or not - and if they didn't we don't know who does. Way too early to run out there and label people thiefs or a pirates.

[persia]

When they sold off Commodore how did they do it?  The whole thing or bits and pieces?  Escom must have made the purchase from somebody, a creditor or someone.

[haywirepc]

As I have stated before no one has ever proven ownership of the roms since the fall of commodore. I say by now, these files are public domain, and so should everyone else.

[kolla]

@eben

this is AmigaOS launching xterm.
It's called Aminux and will be available sooner than later for Pi too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FbDJAVLjWI

I don't grasp what this shows. Launching programs of the host OS from within UAE has been possible since forever, so what'sthe big deal? Now if that xterm had popped up in a Intuition window inside UAE instead of ontop of it, that would have been something.

[cgutjahr]

When they sold off Commodore how did they do it?  The whole thing or bits and pieces?

You're looking for easy answers, but usually there are no easy answers.

That said, ESCOM did buy "the whole thing", i.e. the parent company Commodore International, and of course they (and with them, the rest of the world) thought they owned the Kickstart ROMs. If there's no paperwork to prove that, it's just a management screw-up, not the ultimate proof that everybody lied to us for a decade and a half (well, they lied to us - but not about that )

Besides, you really need to get the idea out of your head that there's a knight in shiny armour waiting somewhere to come out of hiding and rescue AmigaOS. If you manage to take away the Kickstart ROMS from ESCOM and its successors (which means another lawsuit which is going to drag on for years), there's just going to be a new owner who wants to make money with his new baby. And if there's one thing we don't need after 18 years, it's yet another owner trying to make money.

[Pentad]

As I have stated before no one has ever proven ownership of the roms since the fall of commodore. I say by now, these files are public domain, and so should everyone else.

I am *not* a lawyer but I taught basic Copyright at the University for years and I can tell you that it just doesn't go into the Public Domain.

If you are not aware, a copyright is good until 75 years after the author's death.  In this case, I think the following applies:

An employee who writes code does not get the copyright, that goes to the employer. (If you are a contractor it is different)

The employer gets said copyright and can keep or sell it like any other property.

If the employer's business goes bankrupt or is dissolved, the copyright returns to the original author - the employee.  It would never go into the Public Domain by default.

Many software authors from the early 1980s found they had their copyrights to their own games back once the many companies went under.  They then could release them into the Public Domain or GPL or whatever.

Kickstart is complicated because it is written modular but works as one.  This is my best guess as a layman:  I think each author would get his or her own code back.  So, RJ would get Intuition back, Carl would get Exec back, etc...  I'm not sure how they handle multiple people on a piece of code - say three people who wrote XYZ Library.  Maybe they split the copyright?  I'm sure they would just end up in court.

Bottom line, Kickstart is stuck in a legal minefield and it will remain that way until after everyone here is dead.  The best you could hope for is that a single benevolent company owns Kickstart and makes it GPL or Public Domain (good luck).  If the copyright has returned to the authors -I believe- you would have to seek all of their permission to have their code moved to GPL or Public Domain.

I personally believe that nobody knows for sure and that it would take a great deal of money to sort it all out.  I suspect A LOT OF MONEY to read through all the paper work, talk to the attorneys, sort the different laws in different countries, etc...  Somebody does own it, but the cost of figuring that out is just not worth it.  If there was money in licensing it or something I'm sure they would track it down.

Perhaps find a copyright attorney, explain the situation, get his estimated retainer fee on this, and then take up a collection?


Does anybody actually have the source code for Kickstart?  Does Amiga, Inc. or whomever actually have the original source code?  


-P

[bloodline]

Why do I get the feeling we've just been (very successfully) Tolled?

[persia]

Berne Convention, which is in effect outside of the EU and US says 50 years after death.  One of the reasons we're stuck with "the dirge" as a national anthem is because Waltzing Matilda, while public domain here and most of the world, it is still under copyright in those two locations and we would have had to pay royalties when played there!

[number6]

Okay, I'll try to sum it up for you (believe it or not, the following summary is the simplified version):

There is only one entity that claims to own the Kickstart ROMs (amongst other things): Amiga Inc., available (sometimes) at amiga.com. There are several problems though:

1. They licensed most of the rights regarding the Kickstarts, including the right to distribute them in anything but simple emulator-autostarting-a-single-game packages or Amiga-in-a-joystick type hardware, to another entity exclusively: Hyperion Entertainment. Both parties hate each other with a vengeance, and neither trusts the agreement between them (which is available here) or intends to abide by the rules defined in it. You could ask Hyperion for a license, but they're probably just waiting for some idiot who's testing if Amiga Inc. can still pay its lawyers.

2. In an effort to avoid paying taxes, landlords and former employees or partners, Amiga Inc. moved, restructered and renamed itself half a dozen times in the last decade. At the end, nobody cared enough to bring them down, but you won't find many people who wouldn't agree that some really shady stuff has been going on. Even if they did own the IP in question at one point in time, it would probably be easy to finish them off for good. And that's not even counting the paperwork for all these IP transfers and sales, which is a horrible mess (we know, because it was documented in a court case).

3. Nobody knows, if Amiga Inc. ever owned the Kickstart ROMs. They allegedly bought them from Gateway, who allegedly bought them from the bancrupt ESCOM in 1997, who had allegedly acquired them when buying the bancrupt Commodore in 1995. But in 1997, a German judge ruled that ESCOM didn't provide any paperwork that proved they acquired the Kickstart rights along with the trademarks etc. That doesn't mean they didn't have such paperwork lying around somewhere (the company was long defunct when the judge made his decision), but it was only halfheartedly fixed during the sale to Gateway a few months later.

Basically, you will probably have to contact Hyperion, or maybe Amiga Inc. (depending on the exact use for the ROMs you have in mind, see the agreement). If you contact the latter, don't expect an answer unless you promise to provide tons of money or to hurt Hyperion real bad. If you contact the former, expect paranoia and greed, and make sure you don't mind being used as a guinea pig.

Your best bet might be the effort to create free ROMs using the open source AmigaOS clone AROS. Not there yet, but they're getting closer.

Good post.
Although I might say get in touch with an intermediary instead of trying to contact either of the 2 companies directly, if one has issues with direct contact.

#6

[dammy]

Okay, I'll try to sum it up for you (believe it or not, the following summary is the simplified version):

There is only one entity that claims to own the Kickstart ROMs (amongst other things): Amiga Inc., available (sometimes) at amiga.com. There are several problems though:

1. They licensed most of the rights regarding the Kickstarts, including the right to distribute them in anything but simple emulator-autostarting-a-single-game packages or Amiga-in-a-joystick type hardware, to another entity exclusively: Hyperion Entertainment.

Did you forget about Cloanto's license?  So much for exclusively.

[number6]

Did you forget about Cloanto's license?  So much for exclusively.

I believe cgutjahr is speaking about Amiga Inc. and Hyperion. That's not where the original Cloanto license came from, as you well know. I'll let him clarify that bit.

#6