Is Amiga Inc's claim to AOS valid?

[mongo]

I, personally, am of the opinion that AInc claim is invalid (which would then make Hyperion's license invalid).

Than who do you think owns it?

[amigadave]

Not that I really care too much, a large percentage of the remaining users have pretty much stripped my interest in Amiga in recent times, but I wonder what happened to stop Amiga Inc. stop persuing people illegally offering kickstart roms for download ? As anyone who has been around for a while will probably remember, a few years back they were heavily persuing people for doing it, and quite successfully at that. Now is such a stark contrast that I wonder if there's something behind the turnaround.

Money!  (lack of it)

Edit:  If anyone were to make a substantial profit from the name "Amiga", it would be interesting to see who crawls out of the woodwork to make a claim against such profits.  What a colossal FU this has become and what a great shame that the great work and inspiration that was created by the vision of Jay Miner and the group of people he put together to invent the original Amiga has been soiled by so many crooks, incompetent fools and con men because of their stupidity, greed and corruption.

[Iggy]

Than who do you think owns it?

It may come down to who has a liability claim against Commodore Business Machines, Inc. and Commodore-Amiga, Inc.

Money! (lack of it)

They never had money as far as I can tell. What was Hyperion's contract price? Something like $10,000 wasn't it?
Personally, I think the documentation speaks for itself.
The German transfer is questionable (occurring after CBM went bankrupt) thus nullifying the 2007 transfer.

In short, the property was never legally acquired by anyone after CBM folded.

In Mr. Jens Schoenfeld's words, "Face it guys, the 'Amiga curse' is not about the Amiga. It's about the people who supposedly own the rights."

God, i love that quote from Jens.

[jorkany]

Still doesn't matter to the rest of the planet if this law is being made in the USA courts or even by the American government, the rest of the world has their own laws and governments so such a law could never be legally enforced by the USA unless other countries governments & lawmakers agree to it...

Consider what jurisdiction the root DNS servers are under.
Also consider that the RIAA is a worldwide terrorist organization.

[Franko]

Consider what jurisdiction the root DNS servers are under.

I had thought of that and again another simple answer, just make sure it isn't American based...

[Iggy]

I had thought of that and again another simple answer, just make sure it isn't American based...

So much for living in "The Land of the Free".

[mongo]

It may come down to who has a liability claim against Commodore Business Machines, Inc. and Commodore-Amiga, Inc.

All claims were settled during the bankruptcy proceedings. That was the whole point of them.

[Franko]

Consider what jurisdiction the root DNS servers are under.
Also consider that the RIAA is a worldwide terrorist organization.

The only RIAA I know of is the "Recording Industry Association of America", now what they have to do with the Amiga I don't know but if they are a Terrorist Organisation then bring em on I say, I've got me tickling sticks fully loaded with brand new feathers...

@ Iggy

In the western world their is no such thing as "The Land Of The Free", we're all ruled by the rich & powerful minority and like sheep most folk go along with it for fear of being fined or locked up...

It's only when you reach a certain stage in life that you suddenly realise bugger this for a game of soldiers and say sod it to the man...

At the end of the day unlike a computer game you only get one life not three and if you let what's left of your life be ruled by fear of petty laws and BS politics then that's a sad waste of anyones life...

Just remember for 99.99% of the population of this planet what we say and do in life will soon be long forgotten when we're gone, just like the countless billions who came before us, so you may as well do and say as you please in what time you have left and enjoy it, cos at the end of it all when it's game over what most of did or achieved in life amount to nothing in the grand scheme of things...

(This little ditty that I listen to just about every day reminds me of that...

[youtube]rA2-6ZlOXeg[/youtube]

[Iggy]

All claims were settled during the bankruptcy proceedings. That was the whole point of them.

Claims are usually settled during a bankruptcy procedure and all assets are liquidated with claimants being paid from whatever funds are derived from complete liquidation. Any remaining debts are considered discharged and the company no longer exists.
Therefore, how is it legal two years after the liquidation of CBM and Commodore-Amiga for a former official to transfer assets from a non-existent company to another entity?

[Pentad]

I didn't read the whole thread but I read the point Franko made and he does have a point in American Copyright Law.

While a copyright exists for anything a person creates they must also protect that copyright to maintain it.  Some famous examples:

Asprin was a trademarked name but when the public started to use it as a generic term for wanting an analgesic they lost the right to Asprin.

These companies were scared to death of this:

Coke, Kleenex, and Xerox.

Xerox went so far to put ads in magazines telling people to stop saying "I need to Xerox my documents."  They pushed for "Photo Copy" in the public mind.

People would say, "I want a Coke or what kind of Coke can I get you?" Meaning a type of soda.

On Star Trek The Next Generation, they thought Sherlock Holmes was in the PD when they did their first show with that character.  The estate made a lot of noise that it was not in the PD and they still owned it.  They were very nice to Paramount but they banged that drum pretty hard.

If you don't protect your IP a court can rule that you have let it slip into the PD.  

The point I'm making is that I wasn't aware that Ainc (or whoever owns AOS) wasn't sending C&D letters to people hosting Kickstart/Workbench files.  That is bad, bad, bad for them.  

If you can prove that X many sites have had Kickstart/Workbench files for X many years with no action taken by the owners I think you could argue that they have not protected their IP.

I'm not a lawyer, I'm just speaking from my understanding of all of this...

Cheers!
-P

[Franko]

If you can prove that X many sites have had Kickstart/Workbench files for X many years with no action taken by the owners I think you could argue that they have not protected their IP.

That's one of the arguments I would use. It has been used successfully in the past in such claims and still holds true even today...

When someone suddenly decides to claim Copyright infringement and it can be proven that they have not actively done so in recent years and let others get away with it, then they generally have their case thrown out or not even be allowed a proper hearing in the first place...

[dammy]

Did anyone read those references?
It is entirely possible that Escom and Gateway did not have the right to sell the OS (if they ever did sell it) as it may not have been properly transferred to them in the first place.
Which could very well mean that only licensees that dealt with Commodore before bankruptcy have a legal claim to use AOS.

Further, if Escom, fgateway and Amiga Inc. have never been the legal owners of AOS, how long would be needed before it lapsed into public domain?

Someone has to own it so it's either Commodore Holding or Amiga Inc, take your pick.  As for how long before it goes into public domain, 95 years since it was written.

[dammy]

For those who think that copyrights are limited to individual countries, please reference to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_agreements

[Franko]

Someone has to own it so it's either Commodore Holding or Amiga Inc, take your pick.  As for how long before it goes into public domain, 95 years since it was written.

I really wish you would stop using American laws for your examples, USA laws don't apply the rest of the world, each country has it's own laws and length of times such things apply for... so it would depend under which countries laws the documents were signed...


Example UK copyright laws (time limits)...

http://www.caret.cam.ac.uk/copyright/Page171.html

[dammy]

I really wish you would stop using American laws for your examples, USA laws don't apply the rest of the world, each country has it's own laws and length of times such things apply for... so it would depend under which countries laws the documents were signed...


Example UK copyright laws (time limits)...

http://www.caret.cam.ac.uk/copyright/Page171.html

AFAIK, AOS was originally coded and copyrighted in USA.  Do you have proof it was created in the UK so it would fall under UK's copyright laws of 50 years?  I didn't think so.

[mongo]

I really wish you would stop using American laws for your examples, USA laws don't apply the rest of the world, each country has it's own laws and length of times such things apply for... so it would depend under which countries laws the documents were signed...


Example UK copyright laws (time limits)...

http://www.caret.cam.ac.uk/copyright/Page171.html

If something was copyrighted in the USA, than the time limits of the USA apply to it, according to the Berne Convention, of which the UK is a party to.