Mistic Software and the lawsuit

Dark-Star · Post by **Dark-Star** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:12 pm

Hi,

I don't know if I get this right: There's this company who takes ScummVM, removes all the copyright notices (well, most of them aparently) and sells it as their own? And yet when they are confronted with the facts, they still deny that they infringed upon any copyright? How is this possible? I mean, come on, there should be laws against that, right? I can't walk around robbing stores and banks, and when I'm caught tell the judge "oh, hey, you know what? I'll pay some cash to settle this but I still didn't do anything wrong!".

Geez this whole so-called justice system is so fubar that it's no longer funny.

OK, enough ranting for now. Can't we at least know how much they had to pay, and to whom? I guess the cash didn't flow towards the ScummVM team. I'm guessing EFF or something?

-Darkstar

DrMcCoy · Post by **DrMcCoy** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:23 pm

As far as I (who wasn't involved and to whom that's also news) can guess is that nobody wanted to go to court. There are certainly laws against such things, but as far as I've gathered, to actually have something done, you have to challenge it in a court of law. Which involves a lot of time, trouble and money.

I for one am not at all happy with the outcome, but since I don't know what happened "behind the curtains", I can't really judge. And I can certainly understand people not wanting to trouble themselves with legal/court stuff.

bobdevis · Post by **bobdevis** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 6:41 am

From what I gathered, the best people to talk to in case of this kind of infringement is the FSF.

Since they would be sympathetic to your cause they just might might help you out with their legal team. They should have some sound advice for you in any case.

Post by **sev** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 10:38 am

No, the best choise in this case is gpl-violations.org, with whom we cooperated on the case. We got a good lawyer who specializes on such violations.

Eugene

lwc · Post by **lwc** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:52 pm

Admission or not aside, why did some of the money they paid went directly to ScummVM? Is there a commercial license for ScummVM that costs money? I thought ScummVM is free even commercially.

In other words, didn't ScummVM sue them just so they'll present a GPL license in the games' folders?

Post by **sev** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 5:26 pm

lwc wrote:Admission or not aside, why did some of the money they paid went directly to ScummVM?

Who told you that nonsense? Read the press release again, it clearly states where all of the money went.

Eugene

lwc · Post by **lwc** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 11:22 pm

I guess I interpreted "paying all legal fees" literally and not as covering up ScummVM's expenses on the trial.