@wawa

Insurance covers everything until accident happens. Contracts are clear and obvious, until someone challenges them.

All in all the Amiga situation in all seems to me to be very tricky. It seems like there are some agreeings between Hyperion and Amiga inc. that seem at least somewhat established, but even there seems to be some challenge to wether they stand as they understand or not, also comes the underlying questions of does Amiga inc. really won anything anymore, or have they lost everything in that continuity of bankrupts? No one have challemged that in court, and hence we dont know if it would hold or not.

Also is the question, did even Amiga inc. in the first place get anything real, or is it perhaps even so that when commodore bankrupted, Some or all amiga things have already changed to completely different place where we think them to be, and someone has actually claim towards everyone involved in Amiga today. That again have not been challenged at court.

There is also a question if perhaps for example some parts of AmigaOS were in such state that Commodore bankruptcy couldnt have put these usage rights forward, and hence everything beyond commodore is illegal regarding AmigaOS, which could be using some third party part in their code without actual rights.

This again, have not been challenged in court.

On top of these there is the question that supposing someone has one of the before mentioned rights, and he would now challenge them in court, would court decide in his favor or someone elses? For after all, it could be that the real rights owner havent challenged hes rights for even 20 years, and hence he might have lost his right to claim anything anymore.

But this either havent been tried in court.

And then there is still one more question. Is it possible, that while US court would decide one way, then some other court would decide otehrwise, and they both be equally legal, although, perhaps only in their own areas.

As example, perhaps US court would decide there is no right to do calims after 20 years, while UK court would decide it doesnt matter. Hence Amiga Inc. would have rights in US, while some owner of part of commodores corpse happens to own everything Amiga related in UK.

This havent been tried in court either.


But all this gives you the idea that who owns what, is very challenging question. Especially since I would say that publiocly only legal action that gave us any idea was Hyperion vs Amiga inc. and even that ended in both parties settling, which made the courts view only a guess again.

We can at best give our opinions and even then say that probably Amiga Inc. owns the Amiga trademark, probably Hyperion has right for AmigaOS name etc.

But there is no certainty here until courts are full of Amiga cases or someone challenges that they bought it all at Commodore bankruptcy and courts decide that one to be right.

@number6

Quote:

number6 wrote: @cdimauro Quote: It means that, if the messages are true (to be verified), actually there's no one that claim the rights regarding the Amiga mark, because the owner is died and the agreement with Amiga Inc. ends on 2025. Coincidentally since Pentti Kouri passed away, you also have a similar situation at Amiga Inc. Therefore if you are seeking truth, you would have to contact the attorney for both his as well as Barry's estate. Curiosity seekers are simply not going to get answers. If you have a business proposition, then you will face the signing of NDA, and therefore no way to impart the truth to others. Welcome to Amiga. #6

No, I don't have business proposal. I simply think that if no one can / is able to claim the rights of the Amiga mark, AROS can let the "A" letter return to its original meaning, without risking a lawsuit.

@cdimauro

Heh. I meant the more general "you" addressing everyone as a whole.
But the general "you" knows better.

#6

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@thread

Quote:

It licenced the Amiga brand from Amiga, Inc. shortly afterwards on August 31.

It would be nice if Amiga Inc. and CommodoreUSA would compare notes and agree on the terminology they both use.

#6

Last edited by number6 on 07-Nov-2014 at 03:17 PM.

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@Bugala

If no one is claiming to own the Amiga rights, I believe they are losing the registered trademark if they don't use and maintain it.

In other words, they are forfeiting their rights.

You could be in legal limbo because Led Zeppelin is losing their court case for "Stairway to Heaven" because there seems to be other court precedents defined by the Supreme Court over statue of limitations. Led Zeppelin allegedly plagiarized from the group "Spirit".

http://time.com/3528555/led-zeppelin-loses-first-round-in-stairway-to-heaven-lawsuit/

@Chuckt

Yes, but Taurus is a far better piece of music anyway, as was Spirit, as a group. Heh.

But back to the late update to this thread:

Cloanto confirms transfers of Commodore/Amiga copyrights

#6

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@cdimauro



Quote:

No, I don't have business proposal. I simply think that if no one can / is able to claim the rights of the Amiga mark, AROS can let the "A" letter return to its original meaning, without risking a lawsuit.

Just 3 months ago in my country it would be 100 % legal and now
it's no longer.In 2013 China passed Trademark protection law too
so Amiga branded cases could / maybe / probably / or not legally
be made there (knowing Chinese language would be good for
negotiator).

@blizz1220: but if no one can claim the rights... who cares?

Quote:

number6 wrote: Cloanto confirms transfers of Commodore/Amiga copyrights

Cloanto releases Workbench 3.1 disks with the following updates/enhancements:

- Updated C/Version (Y2K patch)
- Addition of Libs/workbench.library (for A-4000T 3.1 ROMs and 3.X ROMs)
- Updated S/Startup-Sequence (for 3.X ROMs)
- Updated Installer 44.10 and FastFileSystem 45.9 (to support larger disks)
- Installer itself is now part of the system installation (inside the Utilities directory)

@thread

Discussion from project owner who got a license from Amiga Inc.

Pay attention.

#6

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@number6

Thanks for notification!

@pavlor

I don't seem to be able to locate this where it should be though...

Amiga Inc.'s News link

#6

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@thread

Moving off-topic discussion about Cloanto here from:

Here

It is my understanding that one can summarize the Cloanto claim concerning the "Amiga" name (do NOT confuse this with OS) as:

"only Cloanto can use it for emulation"

If anyone disagrees with that, you are free to state why you believe so.

For such a discussion I suggest you use:

Cloanto confirms transfers of Commodore/Amiga copyrights

so that THIS thread remains succinct.

#6

Last edited by number6 on 12-Oct-2015 at 04:20 PM.

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@number6

Argh , that would be reallllllyyyyyy strange state of things.

I think that they are only ones authorized to call their distribution
"Amiga" as in "Amiga Forever" but I had enough of thinking what
someone will claim to get his way no matter how stupid for one day.

Last edited by blizz1220 on 12-Oct-2015 at 04:28 PM.

@blizz1220

I should add that it has not been clearly stated BEYOND the use for emulation whether the name can be used by Cloanto for other things or whether they have the right to sub-license it.

I've offered my opinion before that such statements concerning any extended use of the name have been vague. All I can say is that it's not just my own opinion that such statements have been vague.

I also understand that for anything concerning so called "classic", it is wise to contact Cloanto first before committing oneself and one's resources to a project. If I'm wrong about this, I happily stand to be corrected.

#6

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@number6

I would stay away anyway from anything regarding old roms and original files because everything around amiga is poisened. For that you have open source and rom reimplementations :)

@number6

I meant Cloanto's position regarding this not your
opinion as I see their statements same as you for
that matter just to clarify :)

@thread

A compilation of several posts made on the same topic, since this matter keeps popping up in thread after thread after thread:

The following are statements made by various people, which I believe should be looked at in the context of:
(1)the time the statement was made and the events that might have shaped said statement and
(2)the usual semantics one always sees in such statements and not unique to Amiga.

For those that don't understand the use of the word "semantics" I'll offer a simple example:
"we are under no restriction" does not mean "we can do anythig we want", although that is sadly the incorrect
conclusion people draw from such a statement since such vagueries open the door to speculation and personal interpretation.


May 18, 2006 - Hans Joerg Frieden before the lawsuit while he was still spokesman for Hyperion on AW.
Quote:

Since I am also part of the anti-x86 lobby

Quote:

Reason 1: Hyperion does not have a licence for x86, only for PowerPC.

Source

August 8, 2008 - Hans Joerg Frieden during the lawsuit:
Quote:

I would really like to port AmigaOS 4.1 to x86.

Source

October 18, 2009 - Ben Hermans on settlement restrictions:
Quote:

There is no limitation to AmigaOS 4.x.

Source

June 12, 2011 - Ben Hermans after the settlement on PPC and ARM:
Quote:

Then there are some legal issues like some licences being tied to PPC only.

Source

August 9, 2014 - Many years after the settlement and a theory based on the prior statements made publically by Ben Hermans:
Quote:

The Ben Hermans quote about "some licences being tied to PPC only" most certainly refers to the licenses he has from the OS4 developers for their *new* code.

Source

October 20, 2015 - A further extension with an additional statement about Amiga Inc.'s rights:
Source

I believe it is also wise to keep comments from contractors seperate from those made by Hyperion management if you want to understand this.

#6

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@number6

I don't remember where and when i read on this very forum: "and someone thinks that we are restricted to ppc only" or something similar...

I really don't recall well.

_________________
retired

I don't think license is tied to PPC as there is no such evidence and
the one who owns it said it isn't tied to PPC.

However , license covers porting of Amiga OS 3 and use of AmigaONE
trademark , that's all.So if anyone wants to port it again just to x86 this
time following procedure that was done then there is no problem.

Who owns authors right on OS "as is" is different story as whole court
case happened because Amiga Inc. never paid.There are also parts
added by third parties that have their own licenses and new ones
would be needed.I think that was what was told , semantics aside.

Last edited by blizz1220 on 23-Nov-2015 at 09:21 PM.