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SCO Letter to Fortune 1500 Now Online
e6003 writes "The text of the extortion letters that SCO sent out in May 2003 to the 1500 largest US companies is now online. Read in all its glory the lies and misconceptions that SCO has about Linux and the kernel development process. Pamela Jones, the proprietor of Groklaw, suggests Linus Torvalds would have a great case for defamation as a result of this letter and subsequent events."
re: your example: what if you made money with that book (by whatever means), that violates the original author's IP? would the original author be entitled to make you stop or sue you for damages, etc.? My guess (again IANAL) is yes.
more realistically, what if i sold you the rights to a patent i didn't own, and you build a successful company around it? would the rightful owner of the patent have no right at all wrt. to you unrightfully using a patent?
the legal position here (Germ.) at least is, that a contract is based on unlawful circumstances (ie. IP-violation) is plain void. I'd be surprised if it were completely different in the US.
more on topic: what that means for code partially (assuming it's true) by IP-violations, I dunno, but my guess is, as stated before, that the original owner of that IP still has some rights.
Santa Claus is the Mormon god?