It's free advertising for one, and secondly if you got written indefinitely permission from the original copyright holder (not A Inc.) how can they complain..
The Boing! logo was adoped by A Inc. but never was an offiical symbol that was owned and used by Commodore.. Why?? Because they adopted it too, and it wasn't originally copyrighted by Commodore. But the developer of the Boing! ball demo. So their buying the rights just doesn't hold water. A certain developer of the original "Boing!" demo holds that copyright. Or at least did hold the "rights" to it.. During the original Amiga years if you wanted to use the boing! ball, you originally had to get permission from the developer and his company to use it if you decided to, not Commodore. So arguably Commodore never had the rights to it, how could A Inc. have it. They had the demo sure, but was not done in house. That pre-dates the loraine prototype.
Plus that logo has been used by NewTek and Play Inc. too. (pre-dating A Inc's useage). I doubt Play asked permission either and it was probably registered by them before A Inc. came onto the scene (the chrome 3d one version).
It would be silly for them to attempt to say A Inc. really owns the copyright on that, because that was someone else's prior art and copyright other than Commodore..
That's why Commodore themselves used the checkmark it wasn't they didn't like the boing! symbol it just wasn't really theirs (it was the developer of that demo's) to give permission..
So I doubt it holds water that A Inc. could even seriously trademark that logo.. There's tons of prior printed art and software.. It's not my place to say who that developer was (but his name is in the a1000 case) and he still retains the ownership unless he released those rights..
He probably doesn't care and is just supporting the Amiga community. That's probably why A Inc. dropped all the fuss.. It's not even their property.. They bought Commodore registered symbols and the boing! ball is someone elses..
Hints: A2024 and X-Windows..
