SCO Expands Licensing Money Chase Worldwide

drizst 'n drat writes "Article posted recently on ZDNet that 'companies outside the United States that use Linux now face the threat of legal action from the SCO Group, following the announcement on Wednesday that SCO's licenses are available worldwide.'" And cbiltcliffe writes "Vnunet is reporting that SCO is now threatening legal action against UK businesses that run Linux. Yet again, they claim they're going to initiate legal action against Linux users 'within a couple of weeks.' (Funny...weren't they saying that back in September?) They also claim that Novell and HP indemnification schemes are essentially useless (similar to SCO's Linux licences). It definitely appears the media is getting somewhat wiser to the FUD, however, as the story reports 'The run-time licence only permits use of what SCO says is its IP,' rather than 'The licence permits use of SCO's IP' like we would have heard a couple of months ago."

Comments

Re:Barratry..

[Albanach]

Great Britain has two legal systems, one covering England and Wales, the other covers Scotland.

In Scotland, Extortion (the obtaining of money or goods by means of illegitimate threats or demands) is a criminal offence. As a result, such practises as private firms clamping your car for parking on private property then demanding money to release it is illegal in Scotland but not in England. As a result, any Scottish company receiving one of these demands may wish to request a copy of the infringing source and if it's not forthcoming deem the request as an illegitimate threat and report SCO to the police.

In addition the new Proceeds of Crime Act gives police the power to seize all assets belonging to criminals participating in the practise of extortion. Such assets could include cars, houses, boats and bank accounts.

Re:Barratry..

[Zeinfeld]

Doesn't the UK have a law against barratry, something the USA desperately needs? SCO could get royally fucked by playing their legal games in the UK. We can only hope

Damn right, first in the UK the loser pays the costs of both sides. SCO is a foreign corporation and could probably be required to put up a surety if they brought a claim.

Second and more interesting there is actually a tort in the UK that covers this exact type of case.

It is not a good idea to send out demand letters to a UK address unless you can substantiate the claim made.

The UK legal systen is not the place to start frivolous lawsuits unless you have no money to start with and so won't be worse off if you get made bankrupt.