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It's black and white - not ownership, but rights. Cloanto were granted the licence by the legal license holders. Hyperion have no ownership of AmigaOS at all, and theirs only covers the entity known as "AmigaOS 4" and never had any other rights.

> AmiKit drivers

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=11137&start=514
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=11137&start=569
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=11137&start=574

;-)

It's a typo. Keep your panties on.

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No Kenny, Cloanto was a licensee that claims they purchased ownership of AmigaOS after Hyperion had secured exclusive license to develop Amiga OS from Amiga Inc.

Its not at all clear cut except for the fact that Cloanto's rights to a license for emulation was supported in the previous agreement, and Amiga Inc. granted an exclusive to Hyperion to develop Amiga OS.

So Amino/Amiga Inc.'s attempt to sell an unfettered IP to a previous licensee is likely to have little affect on Hyperion's previous binding legal agreement.

To simplify, Amiga Inc. cannot not transfer more rights to Cloanto than it has itself. Get it?

No I understand your sentiment, and acknowledge the hard feelings of many in the community.
But courts don't rule based on what might be best, rulings are based on laws, legal precedents, and binding agreements.

It simple, Hyperion is the only entity legally entitled to develop from Amiga OS 3.1 source code.

Previous versions of Amiga OS muddy the issues surrounding this case, but nothing changes the fact that Hyperion secured its rights before Cloanto tried to purchase the product.

> They [...] were drivers sponsored by Aeon/Amiga Kit. And they very well
> may have a better way of resolving MAC addresses, that is yet to be seen
> as they are holding off releasing these drivers until an OS4 update is released.

Depends on who "they" is actually ;-)

@Jim, you are passionate about this issue, I’ll give you that, but you are confused and don’t even know the difference between key concepts like trade marks and copyrights, or ownership and “license to use” for that matter, and you have for some reasons swallowed all Ben Hermans imaginary clauses and interpretations of “the agreement” whole, so it’s kind of pointless to discuss this issue with you. Could you please tone down the TL;DR posts on this a bit? What you say doesn’t get more true with more words.

Ownership of copyrights is ownership period.

IANAL but I'm inclined to agree with Jim's assessment of the situation.

The Settlement Agreement gave Hyperion a broad set of rights and placed many responsibilities and restrictions on Amiga Inc. Amiga Inc.'s subsequent deal with Cloanto seems to be invalid as it contravenes many of the terms of that agreement.

>>>> Cloanto's claim to ownership of Amiga OS is threadbare at best.

>>> not ownership, but rights. Cloanto were granted the licence by
>>> the legal license holders.

>> No Kenny, Cloanto [...] claims they purchased ownership of AmigaOS

> Jim, [...] you [...] don’t even know the difference between key
> concepts like [...] ownership and “license to use” [...]. [...]
> Ownership of copyrights is ownership

To me it doesn't read like Jim is the one who doesn't know this :-)

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Thank Andreas, I'm pretty sure I have a grasp of the situation, and no grandama I haven't had a glass of Herman's koolaid.

I'm just trying to put this in a historic perspective for you.
Herman's managed to secure a really good settlement and licensing agreements that even acknowledges that Amiga Inc. has obligations to other licensees, particularly for emulation.

The problem is that that document also places restrictions on Amiga Inc.'s rights in regard to Amiga OS moving forward.

The Amino/Amiga Inc. deal with Cloanto occurs AFTER that settlement agreement is in place, and again, Amiga Inc. cannot legally transfer rights it does not have.

Specifically the right to commercialize Amiga OS.

Cloanto, as a previous licensee can assert the right to distribute Amiga OS for emulation, but it can't buy the ownership of an encumbered IP without regard to the restrictions placed on the current IP holder.

I have no love of Ben Herman's, but Mike should have researched this purchase better or contacted a lawyer before he made the mistake of giving money to a con man.

Again, he got chumped.

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No, not really. Cloanto's license dates back to Escom, a real company with a real legal department. Cloanto has allowed Hyperion to exist out of goodwill.

The way I see it Hyperion is risking losing everything. Personally I hope they do lose everything. Cloanto is a better guardian of Amiga classic than Hyperion, and it is not even close. All Cloanto has to do is sell Amiga Forever and nothing else, and it would be insanely better than HYPErion's scorched earth policy trying to destroy every other company it ever interacts with.

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The settlement agreement will be found to be null and void IMO. The judge will look back to the earliest legal licensee, which is Cloanto since 1997 prior to all the other clown-show "companies".

> Cloanto's license dates back to Escom

Not quite. It dates back to Gateway in 1997.

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Nah, the settlement took into account Cloanto's license and the license held by one other company.
Since Hyperion's license and Cloanto's previous license are not in opposition, then the only factor at play is Cloanto's attempt to increase its position from licensee to IP owner.
Even if the court were to recognise that transaction, the stipulations placed on Amiga Inc. come into play.
Amiga Inc is forbidden from further commercializing Amiga OS, and its not allowed to vend a similar product.

So what make you think Amiga Inc. can transfer rights to another entity that they don't possess?

Remember, as Andreas has pointed out, this is the same judge that oversaw the last case.

So he is familiar with the settlement. Amiga Inc.'s sale is what is likely to be rendered invalid.

[ Edited by Jim 17.09.2018 - 16:19 ]

2 ways this could end:

- one party pulls back

- both parties sign some shady face saving deal

Both ways can be entered volantary orotherwise....

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My guess would be option #2. But this situation shouldn't phase our community as we should be over all this.

JimJim is probably right here. Much as it would be great for us to see Hermans lose it's not likely to happen.

@thread

(32) ORDER SETTING TRIAL DATE AND RELATED DATES

#6

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"Jury Trial is set for 12/9/2019"

Crap, my popcorn will be stale by then

Jury trial means that attempts to reach a settlement have already failed.

Good chance that one of the "companies" is either gone by that date, or so dysfunctional that it can't do a proper court-show.

Hence my assessment that it won't end with a proper verdict stands.

@Kronos

So which one are you betting on?

As if that would matter at all.....


Unless you want to convince of the quality of Swedish chocolate ;)

Chocolate?

How about one of these instead?

Send it to the courtroom labeled "evidence, please open to close case"

Of course, if Hyperion were at all looking at getting any damages to help them out of their awful debt, it's a whole year they have to stay alive (and around 200k in extra debt).

I wish one of their creditors would just pull the plug and trigger insolvency already. AmigaOS 4 is already lost; all this farting around isn't going to help.