Workbench Disk Sets... What Would Be The Best Way To Obtain Them...

[Franko]

This thread turned out to be a waste of time...

[antonvaltaz]

Cloanto's false claim that their trademark was infringed upon ie: "WORKBENCH" has nothing to do whatsoever with the claim they have made for the deletion of my Workbench V2.04 files from Mediafire and was issued knowingly or not under false pretences...

On the basis of what you have just copy-and-pasted, Cloanto are not talking about trademarks being infringed, but copyrights.

You see Cloanto's only legal claim to the term "Workbench" being used as a tradmark, was issued under the word Workbench being written entirely on it's own

So are you saying they don't have any trademark rights over the phrase (for example) 'Workbench 2.04'? Only 'Workbench'? Bizarre if true (again I'm no legal expert so can't really comment). But in any case this now doesn't seem to be about trademarks...

The above is the only way Cloanto would have had a genuine legal complaint for infringement of their trademark but as Cloanto are in no manner whatsoever the Copyright holders of Workbench 2.04

They may not be copyright holders of Workbench 2.04 (I don't know) but it seems they are co-copyright holders of Workbench 3.1 (which I think you were also hosting?). According to Michael Battilana of Cloanto here:

In the early 1990s we had also done some operating system  improvements, e.g. to printer drivers and DataTypes, among others. This  resulted in our code being included in the 3.1 release. So, technically  (and legally), we are co-authors of 3.1.

They do not contain the HP Deskjet printer drivers that Cloanto registered for copyright in 1993...

Although presumably the Workbench 3.1 ADFs you put up for distribution do?

So you see Cloanto you made these claims under false pretences whether knowingly or not and should have checked first, so now I'll leave it up to my Solicitors to put together a nice wee legal case for you to look forward too, like I said before Cloanto I really hope you think this was worth it...

It is interesting that (from what you have copy-and-pasted) Cloanto have not made any reference to the Workbench 2.x ADFs you uploaded. As your copy-and-paste suggests that they say Amiga Inc are the (primary) copyright holders of Workbench 3.1, I guess they'd also say Amiga Inc are the (primary) copyright holders of previous versions of Workbench?

[Franko]

This thread turned out to be a waste of time...

[psxphill]

If they own the original also, its irrelevant who's fingers actually pushed the copy button. They are entitled to use a backup, period...
 
Also, if you read the whole thread, you would see why it's relevant.

Actually it is relevant who's finger pushes the copy button in US fair use law.
 
I have read the whole thread, the reason it's not relevant is that in no way can you class distributing copyright works as fair use. Fair use covers you being able to make a backup of your own disk for yourself, it doesn't cover you making a backup for others. If you think I'm wrong then go read the law and show me.

[antonvaltaz]

Look it's very obvious that yourself and "Steino" are associated in some way with Cloanto so I'm not going to even bother commenting on your flawed and pointless remarks here, for the simple fact that both of you strangely enough have only recently joined and your only posts on this site have all been made in this thread..

Well...

(a) my join date was Mar 2010;
(b) I am much more active over on EAB (same username), but have been reading Amiga.org as well more lately;
(c) I have commented a few times on this thread because I find what you are doing very interesting. In fact in my first post in this thread I stated :

I have every sympathy for what you're doing, it is absolutely ludicrous that they are not distributed for free.

I admit I have become a little less sympathetic in your demonisation of Cloanto, but I still respect that you are trying to get to the bottom of a very murky copyright maze, and I hope we all have a little more clarity as a result of what you're doing.

So I'm not really sure why you're getting personal with me...

So read this carefully and try and understand the Cloanto clearly tried to make the only part of their complaint that had any chance of being valid as being based on an infringement of their trademark "WORKBENCH"...

I've read that email from MediaFire again (with Cloanto's email pasted in), and it reads to me that they are saying:
(a) they claim your ADFs infringe on (at least) three US copyrights which are either owned by, or licensed to, them;
(b) they claim that your ADFs ALSO infringe on their 'Workbench' trademark.

In the other stuff you copy-and-pasted (at 10:52am today) it only talks about two specific copyrights, and doesn't mention trademarks, granted.

But it's not true that in the e-mail you've just re-pasted now (at 11:40am) that they only refer to their 'Workbench' trademark.

Anyway, will watch with interest as to what happens next...

[psxphill]

Ahhhh! The copyright mafia so knowledgeable about crap they are the true legal expert that the whole world looks to.... i used to have a measure of respect for some people here (not talking about Franko btw) but now i see them as sheep and morons regurgitating the same things over and over again how every sad.
Craptos only have right when it come to their stupid EMULATION package (that i have said elsewhere you can do better in 5 secs and for free). They have no right on REAL CLASSIC AMIGA hardware.

I'm not a legal expert, but seriously the amount of crap in this thread is ridiculous. Referring to cloanto as "craptos" is about as moronic as referring to microsoft as "micro$oft" or "microsucks" (don't forget the equally inane "winblows" instead of windows). Yeah your lack of intelligence really scares me.
 
So cloanto has a right to protect workbench disks used for emulation and not real amiga hardware? Well my real amiga can't boot off adf's, only emulators can. So does it really come as a suprise that they would want to stop you distributing adf's?
 
If you were selling floppy disks with pirate copies of workbench on then cloanto wouldn't care.

[Forcie]

Well my real amiga can't boot off adf's, only emulators can. So does it really come as a suprise that they would want to stop you distributing adf's?

Tools for writing ADF images to real floppies on a real Amiga have been around as long as the format has existed.

[bloodline]

Well...

(a) my join date was Mar 2010;
(b) I am much more active over on EAB (same username), but have been reading Amiga.org as well more lately;
(c) I have commented a few times on this thread because I find what you are doing very interesting. In fact in my first post in this thread I stated :

I admit I have become a little less sympathetic in your demonisation of Cloanto, but I still respect that you are trying to get to the bottom of a very murky copyright maze, and I hope we all have a little more clarity as a result of what you're doing.

So I'm not really sure why you're getting personal with me...



I've read that email from MediaFire again (with Cloanto's email pasted in), and it reads to me that they are saying:
(a) they claim your ADFs infringe on (at least) three US copyrights which are either owned by, or licensed to, them;
(b) they claim that your ADFs ALSO infringe on their 'Workbench' trademark.

In the other stuff you copy-and-pasted (at 10:52am today) it only talks about two specific copyrights, and doesn't mention trademarks, granted.

But it's not true that in the e-mail you've just re-pasted now (at 11:40am) that they only refer to their 'Workbench' trademark.

Anyway, will watch with interest as to what happens next...

+1

Totally agree, the old Operating systems should have been released for free years ago. But I don't see why attacking Cloanto for providing a legal route to get them makes them a bad company!

[Franko]

This thread turned out to be a waste of time...

[Franko]

This thread turned out to be a waste of time...

[Piru]

Look it's very obvious that yourself and "Steino" are associated in some way with Cloanto

Hey you forgot me! Certainly Cloanto must be paying me or something because I don't agree with you.

[bloodline]

Hey you forgot me! Certainly Cloanto must be paying me or something because I don't agree with you.

He also forgot to include C=USA!

[antonvaltaz]

ADF's are just a way of making backup copies of you're floppy disks just like DMS was, they weren't created just for the use on a PC running an Amiga emulator... comphrehende...

No, but I suspect the problem may be that if you put copyrighted ADFs up to download for people who legitimately have a right to them, i.e. owners of actual Amigas like yourself, then how would you prevent people who don't have the right to download them from doing so (e.g emulator users)? A service in which actual floppy disks are posted out, however, would be useless to anyone who doesn't own the hardware.

Now admittedly:
- it's pretty petty that anyone should get upset about sharing 15-25 year old software which hasn't been on sale for years (and which doesn't look likely to be sold for this purpose ever again);
- even more ridiculous that there is no legal way for genuine owners of Amiga hardware to get hold of Workbench disks or disk images.

Nevertheless, from a technically legal perspective I am not sure you're going to get anywhere with this.

And realistically, does anyone who needs a Workbench ADF, for whatever purpose, really have that much difficulty in acquiring it for free with Google's help?

[Franko]

This thread turned out to be a waste of time...

[Claw22000]

Tools for writing ADF images to real floppies on a real Amiga have been around as long as the format has existed.

You forgot to mention that there is the HXC floppy emulator which makes it possible to boot, use, and install amiga software using adfs.

[persia]

EULAs have never been properly tested in court.  Even the US, with it's strong connection to the software manufacturers has no court cases that actually give legal standing to EULAs, only a few that comment on certain policies within EULAs.  Most other countries have less than that.

So basically, until someone can prove in court in your country that EULAs are legally enforceable, it's all in the realm of legal theory.  It gets back to that old chestnut, when I buy a copy of software am I getting the software or just a license or something in between.