[News] Serious allegations about H&P | ANN.lu |
Posted on 08-Nov-2001 14:17 GMT by Christian Kemp | 164 comments View flat View list |
Amigo follows up on serious allegations about H&P and says: "I also just asked Unisys as it says here, and am waiting for a reply. If true, H&P could probably be forced to close."
[ If H&P indeed didn't pay royalties for Unisys' GIF algorithm, they might not be forced to close per se, but if this is indeed true, and Unisys decides to sue, they might have to pay some serious fines. Also note that while this is not in unmoderated, it's highly speculative, unconfirmed and generally should be taken with the usual grain of salt - CK ]
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Serious allegations about H&P : Comment 55 of 164 | ANN.lu |
Posted by Ben Hermans/Hyperion on 09-Nov-2001 08:34 GMT | @Emannuel Leseur:
>> H&P had a valid agreement with Chris Wiles and they acted in good
>> faith.
>There was good faith at the beginning. As soon as they *know* they
>have no rights to distribute AmiTCP and they continue to do it,
>there is no longer good faith.
That reasoning simply won't stand up in court.
Just imagine the repercussions of such type of reasoning.
Two days prior to a release of a product an agreement might get cancelled and you would then be required to destroy the entire inventory?
No, a license agreement cannot be terminated without abiding by the contractual terms governing termination.
Is there are no contractual terms, a "reasonable" period must be observed.
>> The fact that the agreement between Chris Wiles was supposedly
>> subsequently "terminated" by the authors of AmiTCP does not alter
>> that assessment.
>Stop being ridiculous please. There is no need to terminate any
>agrement to make this transaction invalid.
I'm glad you are lecturing me on the law now.
What is your expertise in this area?
>The AmiTCP copyright holders gave Chris Wiles the right to
>distribute AmiTCP with Genesis. This does not give him any right
>to transmit this distribution right to anyone. A distribution
>right can only be obtained from the copyright holder, it can
>not be transmited.
Completely and utter legal nonsense.
The only type of agreement that cannot be "assigned" to a third party are agreements which are "intuitu personae" or where there is a law prohibiting this.
For instance, when we license a game from Monolith, we acquire a license to develop, modify, use, distribute and market.
Nothing prevents us from assigning certain rights to third parties (distribution and marketing rights to a publisher for instance) or even to assign the entire development to third party contractors.
When you build a house and get a contractor to do so, does he or his employees need to take care of everything himself or can he also bring in contractors to do the roof, the plumbing etc.?
"Intuitu personae" contracts refer to agreements were the identity of the contracting party is key.
For instance if you hire Britney Spears to perform at a concert, she can't send Jennifer Lopez in her place.
Cleary the vast majority of contracts (and this includes license and distribution agreements) are NOT intuitu personae and there is no impediment whatsoever to assign the rights to third parties.
Unless this is contractually excluded.
Ask Ben Yoris if you don't believe me.
He will tell you exactly the same.
>Whether Chris Wiles acted in good faith when he sold Genesis
>to H&P, I don't know. Whether H&P thought in good faith to have
>bought AmiTCP, probably. But the fact is that they don't have
>its rights, that the deal is invalid, and thus that it is
>illegal for them to distribute AmiTCP. And still they continue
>distributing it knowingly. Whether or not they have been
>wronged by Chris Wiles doesn't change the fact that they are
>wrong too.
Like I said, H&P claim to have a valid contract with Chris Wiles which grants them the rights to do exactly what they did.
Nobody has challenged them or Chris Wiles legally in any way.
There were attempts to extract large amounts of money (upwards of 10000 USD) from H&P for something which they already paid a substantial sum to Chris Wiles.
Anyway, I can't say that I am surprised by the double standard.
If I suggest that MorphOS is in part based on OS 3.0/3.1 source-code, I am accused of being unfair because you are innocent until proven guilty.
Apparently the same line of reasoning doesn't apply to H&P but only MorphOS. |
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