Who owns the copyrights to Workbench/AmigaOS?

[AmigaFreak]

Okay, I'm a little confused.

Who owns the copyright to AmigaOS? - I see this company Hyperion, then I see that Amiga Inc. has a section on Amiga OS.... who owns the classic version, and who is currently producing AOS 4 and possible later versions?

[haywirepc]

Apparently hyperion owns the rights to amigaos 4.0 onward. Amiga inc still owns the rights to amigaos 1.x-3.x, though they do nothing with it apparently.

Cloanto, due to what is now perhaps an ancient licencing agreement with amiga inc, own the rights to distribute amiga os3.x for emulation purposes.

[kedawa]

I think 3.5 and 3.9 belong to other companies.

[cha05e90]

http://aminet.net/package/docs/misc/Amiga-Trademarks

...might help...

[wawrzon]

Okay, I'm a little confused.

Who owns the copyright to AmigaOS? - I see this company Hyperion, then I see that Amiga Inc. has a section on Amiga OS.... who owns the classic version, and who is currently producing AOS 4 and possible later versions?

and why is this interesting? this is such a mess that whoever shouts most seems to be treated as copyright owner, but none knows it for fact and there is always a chance someone will appear from around the corner and claim the opposite.

as an end user its best not to bother with that. just use your amiga and when its not enough go for the open source amiga solution where is no doubt about any legality. (aros)

[persia]

Trademarks and copyrights are different animals, as are patents, the last of which expired quite recently....

http://aminet.net/package/docs/misc/Amiga-Trademarks

...might help...

[wawrzon]

ermm yeah, suspect the trademark is actually in question here not the copyrights.

[psxphill]

ermm yeah, suspect the trademark is actually in question here not the copyrights.

Before you ask that question you'd need to specify what trademark, what country and what market.
 
I don't know how accurate or up to date this list is http://de4.aminet.net/docs/misc/Amiga-Trademarks.pdf

[haywirepc]

The whole thing is kind of funny. None of the amiga grave robbers have ever provided any legal proof when they have claimed ownership of anything amiga... They just make claims and threaten people.

Silly Billy and Amiga inc selling the rights to a name or trademark they can not
even prove they own...? Thats funny. Thats their only so called asset... The name... They make zero products, for how many years now? Wait they did recently sell some amiga rebranded tablets, but some people ordered them or there was some controversy with that... Those products vanished from their website,now their only "products" are amiga classic games... For blackberry?
Well its a step up for them actually...

Grave robbers claiming ownership of kickstart roms they can not prove they
actually own... Threatening to sue people when the roms are posted on websites for download... The whole thing is funny...

I say its been long enough, let the grave robbers go get real jobs, stop trying to live off the corpse of a long dead company and let amiga be free for its users.

[som99]

The whole thing is kind of funny. None of the amiga grave robbers have ever provided any legal proof when they have claimed ownership of anything amiga... They just make claims and threaten people.

Silly Billy and Amiga inc selling the rights to a name or trademark they can not
even prove they own...? Thats funny. Thats their only so called asset... The name... They make zero products, for how many years now? Wait they did recently sell some amiga rebranded tablets, but some people ordered them or there was some controversy with that... Those products vanished from their website,now their only "products" are amiga classic games... For blackberry?
Well its a step up for them actually...

Grave robbers claiming ownership of kickstart roms they can not prove they
actually own... Threatening to sue people when the roms are posted on websites for download... The whole thing is funny...

I say its been long enough, let the grave robbers go get real jobs, stop trying to live off the corpse of a long dead company and let amiga be free for its users.

Amen to that. Well said! The whole kickstart mess is laughable, let them be free it's not like people won't get em anyways...
Would be fun to see what happens if I would make new replacement cases for Amiga with the same logo on for people who want new white cases. Been toying with the idea to make replacements for wedge cases for a while but besides the cost I guess I would be sued for them having the Amiga logo...

[wawrzon]

you will likely never have free kickstart that is legal beyond doubt. except there is aros kickstart, which is free, open source, compatible with the whole range of kisckstarts since 1.x till 3.x, and provides additional and better features. this kickstart and aros 68k still needs some work in order to be fully usable on amiga hardware, under uae it is quite usable as of today.

so dont moan about making kickstarts free, since no party that claims ownership is interested in supporting original amiga community (68k)  except cloanto/amiga forever. do something. support aros. programmers, help optimize it. users: test and report. its in your hands.

[cgutjahr]

Silly Billy and Amiga inc selling the rights to a name or trademark they can not even prove they own...? Thats funny.

The owners of trademarks and domain names can be easily verified by Joe Public, as that information is publicly available. "Silly Billy" and his (former) friends do own both the trademarks and the domain.

Grave robbers claiming ownership of kickstart roms they can not prove they
actually own...

Nobody ever tested if AInc can actually prove they own the Kickstart ROMs (and the rest of Amiga OS). Hyperion was threatening to do so in the court case against AInc, but they didn't go through with it and accepted a royaltee free, do-whatever-you-want license for OS 3.1 and the BoingBall and AmigaOS trademarks instead.

Hence we don't know if AInc can actually prove ownership or not. People asking for proof and not getting an answer is not proving anything. Of course, just like everybody else, I have hunch if they could prove anything if forced to - but assuming is not the same as knowing.

And the more important point is: By now, nobody is ever going to try them again. If you need Kickstart licenses for retro projects, go to Cloanto. For any other commercial ventures, the Amiga marks and the OS are completely useless by now - thanks to all the greedy and incompetent idiots involved, not just AInc.

[som99]

you will likely never have free kickstart that is legal beyond doubt. except there is aros kickstart, which is free, open source, compatible with the whole range of kisckstarts since 1.x till 3.x, and provides additional and better features. this kickstart and aros 68k still needs some work in order to be fully usable on amiga hardware, under uae it is quite usable as of today.

so dont moan about making kickstarts free, since no party that claims ownership is interested in supporting original amiga community (68k)  except cloanto/amiga forever. do something. support aros. programmers, help optimize it. users: test and report. its in your hands.

Wait what? I do not moan about it since we all can get them if we want for free from many online sources or dump our own. I just think it's silly that it's illegal to spread them for emulating purposes for us users even more when they are so easy obtainable.
I do not believe that spreading them freely would hurt cloanto since at least the people I know who bought Amiga forever didn't buy it for the kickstart roms but for the DVDs and hassle free emulation.

A user of WHDLoad might not need the complete package or users who set up their own emu environment etc so at least let people buy only the roms or let them be free, also as far as I know they do not ship all kickstarts from all amigas and thus you still need to obtain a complete dump set illegally if yo want/need them all.

Also believe me, if I had time to help the aros team I would in any way I could. I got loads on my plate and to little time and my boss are not keen on me doing private work when I'm at work.

[Matt_H]

Short answer: It's a complete mess.

On the surface, the path of ownership went Commdore->Escom->Gateway->Amiga Inc.

But Amiga Inc, rather than being a singular owner, is actually a long series of shell corporations and quasi-legal entities so convoluted that it would probably take the full faculty of a major law school several years to decipher.

Hyperion was licensed to develop OS4, but a provision of the contract (the "bankruptcy clause") was to grant them full ownership if Amiga Inc went out of business. Whether that clause was properly triggered, amongst other issues, was the subject of a multi-year lawsuit. From my understanding, the outcome is that Hyperion now owns OS4 outright and has a license to use and distribute OS3 and earlier in matters related to OS4.

3.5 and 3.9 were developed by Haage and Partner, and I don't think there are any ownership issues surrounding them. (Not of this type, at any rate.)

Cloanto can trace its license to Commodore and the Escom/Gateway era, so it's also protected from the more recent insanity.

[psxphill]

I just think it's silly that it's illegal to spread them for emulating purposes for us users even more when they are so easy obtainable.

There are many things that are easily obtainable but illegal. That isn't one of the considerations when making a law.