A-EON Technology Acquires Personal Paint

[Minuous]

>but what I don't understand is any complaints about A-Eon's efforts and involvement in the community.

If the new version is so much better as is claimed then the old version is no threat to it. Preemptively removing stuff from these archives without warning is disrespectful and disruptive to the community.

[Minuous]

@TrevorDick:

Yes, that is good news about the ongoing development of it.

[Minuous]

@gertsy:

I read the official press release PDF, and the announcement at http://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2014-11-00053-EN.html, neither of which mentioned that it was Cloanto's fault. I avoid Facebook wherever possible, as do many others. So any important information such as this would be better to be in the press release.

In fact, I'm not sure how clean A-EON's hands actually are in this matter. The amiga-news announcement says "At the request of the copyright holders, the full version of Personal Paint, which had been released on Aminet 17 years ago, has been removed from the archive yesterday." The press release says "A-EON and Cloanto will share joint ownership of Classic Amiga versions up to V7.2". Therefore, it seems they are both responsible for this. And it was A-EON that amiga-news asked for an explanation of the removal.

[Minuous]

Did anyone else notice this part buried inside the EULA:

"Publication or distribution of any part of this archive without the
prior written license from Cloanto constitutes acceptance of a licensing
contract and fee to be determined by Cloanto, at a cost in no case lower
than EUR 10000.00, payable to Cloanto immediately upon publication or
distribution."

This demonstrates the likely reason it was released in the first place: hoping that someone would mirror the file for the benefit of the community, then they could threaten to sue them for millions of euros to force an out-of-court settlement, just like eg. the MPAA do. Even though EULAs in general, and completely ridiculous and unfair clauses like this one in particular, have no legal force. It really is a good example of Cloanto's philosophy of screwing the community.

[Minuous]

This is nothing really to do with Amiga Forever or Spotify, I'm not sure of the relevance.

>So, unless you have any spesific cases where Clantao have gone out of their ways to hammer a poor unsuspecting soul into the ground on legality, you should maybe rethink your accusations.

Well, there was the bluehost incident a few years back.

Anyway, the fact that they haven't to my knowledge attempted to sue anyone over PPaint probably just means they are fully aware that these kinds of licence terms are completely unenforcable and would be laughed out of court.

But it looks like it was A-EON after all behind the removal from Aminet, and then they falsely tried to blame Cloanto for it: "will continue to make historical version of Personal Paint available for free download and that includes the version of PPaint that Cloanto removed from Aminet." and then silently edited their post later to remove this false claim without any explanation.

[Minuous]

I must be mistaken in thinking that you are the programmer who I donated a G4 MacMini MorphOS system to years ago, with the hopes that you would produce some useful software, or at least port some existing software of your own, or others, to the MorphOS platform.

I have done so, and I continue to do so, as a quick glance at Aminet or my site will indicate. (Or I can list them all here for you.) Are you suggesting I have done otherwise?

I would think that as a programmer, you would support the right of other programmers to do what ever they want with their code, including trying to sell it in any way that they choose.

I never said they shouldn't develop new versions of PPaint and sell them.

I doubt that Trevor Dickinson will ever make a single penny of profit from our community, after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars developing new hardware for those interested in running AmigaOS4.x on PPC computers

Maybe or maybe not; certainly the profit margins on those machines are excessive. So if they can't turn a profit, maybe they should rethink their business model, eg. to go to open hardware, as people have been suggesting for years. But that's another topic.

I believe that even the members of our community who dislike the products currently available from A-Eon, or who dislike the decisions they have made on the direction they support AmigaOS4.x users (which is not the only part of the community they support), would agree that Trevor and A-Eon deserve some credit for at least attempting to do something, while so many others just complain and do nothing.

It is people who act like you just did Minuous, who make me sick, and wonder why anyone would act that way.  Like his products and services or not, and agree or disagree with his decisions on how to support our community, what gives you the right to ask him to leave our community and to accuse him falsely, as you have done?

I never asked him to leave the community, I don't see where you are getting this idea from. But clearly it doesn't help the community to remove software from Aminet like this without warning, and then lie about it.

Here's what has happened:
a) A-EON pressures Aminet to remove software.
b) I and others blame A-EON for doing this.
c) A-EON says "Also we will continue to make historical version of Personal Paint available for free download and that includes the version of PPaint that Cloanto removed from Aminet." thus attempting to shift blame onto Cloanto.
d) I accept his words as truth, apologize for thinking it was A-EON at fault, and blame Cloanto.
e) Further information comes to light proving it was A-EON all along, and that they have lied.
f) A-EON edits post to remove false claim without explanation.

That makes me pretty angry, that he spreads lies like this, he should not blame other companies for the actions of his company, it's just a matter of professionalism. It's not a matter of liking the products or not. I don't believe I have made any accusations that are false (except blaming Cloanto, which was based on taking A-EON at their word, a mistake I won't make again), maybe you could give an example...?

[Minuous]

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't Aminet and it's mirrors for the benefit of the community?  Would there really be a need to host it elsewhere?

Recent events have shown that things can and do disappear from Aminet without warning...

[Minuous]

I did say I wished they would, not quite the same as asking them to, but I perhaps should have been clearer on that point. And it's only because they insist on inflicting this Apple-crap on us. AmiStore isn't something that was in any way necessary, and it has already resulted in files being removed without warning from OS4Depot and Aminet, I don't see how that is a good thing.

[Minuous]

There is plenty of room for both. You should avoid mixing them up. Critique against trying to clean the freeware version off the internet is no the same as critique against the continued development of PPaint. In the same vein, praise for the continued development is not the same thing as praise for them asking for their files to be removed from Aminet.

Well said.

can anyone please suply some court cases involving private persons and distubution of 15+ year old software? Ive searched here in Sweden and can not find a single case, everything is just about new software and movies/music. Seems hard to find this anywhere from any place in the world.

ThoR has made some accurate observations about the legalities of abandonware, but as you have surmised, in terms of actual cases of being taken to court over abandonware, it just doesn't happen. Therefore the actual legal risk is effectively nil. And of course, as in my case, if one has no assets, there is no problem in being sued.

Note further that even in case the owner went bankrupt, the copyright doesn't go away. It is just transfered.

IANAL but my understanding is that this would be correct where the bankrupt company was bought by another one. But in some cases this doesn't happen and thus there is no rights holder any longer for that material.

In short for me is preservation to hinder something from getting lost forever important.

Your site seems have a password on it, that's not very helpful in terms of preservation. :-(