Legal issue of Kickstart ROMs

[AmigaEd]

I'm no legal expert, but it seems to me that any company basing their ownership claims, licensing claims, and actions on an agreement with a company that no longer exists is most likely no longer valid. I believe that here in the U.S. an agreement between two business entities is considered dissolved when either one or both of the entities no longer exhibit their interest or no longer exist as companies.

Perhaps a bounty should be created to pay for a lawyer who in turn would file a petition on the behalf of the "Amiga Community" claiming rights to the ROMs. I'm sure the right lawyer could talk stuff like "in the best interest of humanity, infringement of rights, collusion, Eminent Domain, Magna Carta, Manifest Destiny, etc".

If it could be shown that the "Amiga Community" is a class (and i'm sure that it is in some way) then maybe this could done as a "Class Action" lawsuit. It seems like rulings in these types of cases almost always favor the class.

Maybe a ruling or agreement could be reached where all members of the class would receive two new ROMs or a CD-ROM with ROM files for every Amiga that they have. (As if that would ever happen, I'll bet no company would step up to claim ownership if they knew they might have to supply a bunch of ROM chips or CD-ROMS)

If nothing else, the whole issue could get tied up in the courts for years until all of the current entities claiming ownership fold up and disappear. This would leave ownership even more impossible to resolve, dispute or refute. I'm sure some more posers would show up to fill their shoes and to claim their non-existent rights.

[AmigaEd]

I think you understimate the amount of money that you'll need to raise to achieve that.

No, I didn't underestimate anything. You will notice that I did not mention any monetary amount. I'm sure though that a lawyer could be found who would take this on for a reasonable amount of compensation. The reality is that in this case he would hardly even have to do anything. File a petition here or there, a deposition or two. Some tactical delaying actions in the court. Normal stuff really.
 

I can't even work out what your lawsuit would be for & who it would be against.

The lawsuit would be on the behalf of the "Amiga Community" or "Amiga Users" or Amiga Computer Users" or whatever the class would be called. The respondent would any party who claims to own rights to the ROMs. Be that, A Inc, Hyperion, Gateway, or whoever.

The whole beauty of this is that most likely none of them could demonstrate their definitive rights to the ROMs and that the whole thing could be mired in the court for years.
 

The easy way to find who owns the rights would be to start advertising and selling minimig along with roms & hope that when/if someone comes along they don't sue you for more money than you made. Thats how big businesses do it.

Clearly someone is going to come along. If you don't cave in early in their attack, their going to start some posturing and perhaps a filing with the court. You said earlier that I underestimated the amount of money needed to initiate a something like this. If that's true, I doubt that any of the companies involved have much money to launch any kind of a formidable attack. Heck, the way they do business they are certainly not making any money. Over the course of several years a bounty could be raised that could give them a challenge. We're clearly not talking about big business here, were talking about companies which may not even exist anymore, which never did, or which are barely eeking out an existence.

[AmigaEd]

Google and you can find everything in a few minutes. Not a problem.

Some of AmigaEd's stuff doesn't read as logical to me. Companies are born and die day in day out and their assets including their patents and copyrighted material belong to their creditors. Other companies cease trading and their copyrights are held by them until they expire even if they are no longer a registered company.

Yes, I sure some of it doesn't seem logical. It was late when I posted. I think in many cases you would be correct. However, in the case of licensing or distribution rights I'm not so sure. Using those rights (which may not even be demonstrable) to act as an Intellectual Property cop seems even less likely to carry any weight if challenged. This might especially be true if the company who allegedly licensed those rights to you either no longer exists, never existed or never owned the rights to begin with.

I'll take another approach to this...

It seems that anyone could claim rights and or ownership. In court they would most likely be required to demonstrate that ownership or at least provide a compelling case as to why their claim should be honored.

So for example, you could walk in to the courts and file a petition claiming to own the rights to some technology. Now that may or may not be true, but you could none the less make the claim. You could even posture yourself and take certain actions to further express your claim of ownership such as selling or distributing the technology. Sure another entity could attempt to block your actions, asking the court to intervene with an injunction requesting you to cease and desist. Then you could counter. This stuff gets tied up in the courts for years and you could carry on for a long time doing whatever it is you're doing with the technology.

Sure there is a risk that some judgment will made against you if you loose out in the courts. Quite often you hear of these judgments and in the end the the award is small compared to the profits that were made by the encroaching entity in the years before. Corporations play this game all of the time.

Point is that It costs a lot of money to stave off a claim such as this and I'd be willing to bet that none of the players in the current Amiga arena could keep up a fight for very long. (business isn't exactly booming)

Regards,
AmigaEd