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SCO Adds Copyright Claim to IBM Suit
An anonymous reader writes "News.com.com reports that the SCO Group has significantly widened its Unix and Linux lawsuit against IBM,
adding a copyright infringement claim to the already complicated case." There's also another story discussing the copyright claims.
Adding a copyright infringement claim? They wouldn't dare!
Stimpy: "Hey, Ren, if we keep piling things onto the suit, we'll never lose because it'll go on for ever."
Ren: "Stimpy! you're a genious!"
Stimpy: "All we have to do is keep finding investors to underwrite the suits, because if SCO runs out of money we'll have to find someone else to represent."
Ren: "So geet back to woork, you eediot!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
looks like it won't take long until we see something like this in courts.
The IT section color scheme sucks.
If we apply that standard to /., wouldn't 99.9% of the stories go away? How many of them start with "NYTimes is reporting... According to CNN.com..."
The problem is that if someone were to actually buy SCO, it would set a dangerous precedent and other failing compaines would be sure to follow.
No the only way to put an end to this is to make sure that SCO goes down in a ball of fire that can be seen around the world.
Groklaw has a detailed eye-witness account. It seems SCO's new claims might just be about IBM continuing to distribute AIX after SCO "revoked" their license. And apparently IBM's lawyers wiped the floor with SCO's counsel (it wasn't Darl's brother this time!). Great reading - enjoy!
This is good news. IBM surely has the money to fight the defense. Granted, who knows... maybe IBM did commit some heinous act of open source, but at least SCO's ammending the copyright issue will bring the entire issue to the forefront and get us all a resolution faster. Certainly, its better than waiting for the breach of contract issue to get resolved, then waiting through a copyright case.
So now they want to claim extra damages for an infringement of "registered" copyright when the registration was filed after the lawsuit? IANAL but this really seems like grasping at straws, otherwise this would always happen in a copyright dispute to get the extra damages.
Plus, doesn't this now potentially get them in trouble with Novell who claims that the copyrights are still theirs? Criminal plagiarism, anybody?
The problem comes when the owner of the wall has coated it with teflon.
Just like driving a car:
(D) to go forward
(R) to go backward
I'm no lawyer, but so far as I understand, if this carries through and the verdict is against SCO and the judge feels the case had no merit, IBM should be able to turn around and sue for (very significant!) damanges.
The only asset SCO has that's worth dirt right now is UNIX licensing. Wouldn't it be poetic if the outcome of SCO's market gaming were that IBM sued SCO for all assets, including that, then turned around and freed UNIX once and for all? :)
(Just kidding. This is Darl, and Linux is bad, you smelly hippy.)
Immediately following the addition of the copyright infringement claims, Darl McBride announced that his dog fluffy, a 3 year old pomeranian had been kicked and severely injured. McBride citing his suspicions of IBM being the culprit planned to add his veterinarian bills as well as an unspecified monetary claim for emotional distress. "Poor Fluffy will never be the same again" Darl was quoted as saying from his Lindon Utah office
I watched Darl's presentation at Harvard in its entirety last night. He (and the CIO at SCO) dodged so many of the questions it was getting boring. Namely Linus' claim of remembering two write 2 of the 70 header files submitted as "infriging" by SCO.
You'd think that after hearing a CEO of a company speak...I'd at least give more validity to their claims. But after hearing Darl...it felt like he was struggling to stay afloat.
Better than Flickr - Manage, Share, Archive
Now the bad news: Posting it on Groklaw seems to have been enough to /. the court's server, so you're going to have to wait a while to read it (and no, I didn't grab a mirror while I had it - my bad).
Of course, posting the link here is far worse than posting it on Groklaw, so maybe you should try to read it tomorrow...
Late update: I re-tried the link when I did the preview, and got it - so it's back, or perhaps intermittent. I'm going to try to grab it right after I post...
This just seems like another tactic to stall their case. Personally, I believe that there is something more sinister than just a dying company in its death throws here. The longer this goes on, the more damage being done to Linux and open source in general. Obviously, when they finally have to account for any of their claims they will quickly lose, but the longer they can take to prevent that the better (if you support my hypothesis).
My guess is they'll go to court and say "Your honour, you asked us to provide these documents to IBM before the case could continue, however since that ruling we've ammended our suite and would ask that we can push back that date as a result."
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Suppose some terrorists took innocent hostages in order to exchance them for known terrorists in prison, and demanded an exchance. If we actually went though with the exchance, it would be a short term good at a severe long term cost when more groups of innocent people are taken hostage by other groups.
Buying out the SCO would encourage more bad behaviour. Better to stick this through, no matter what the cost. It may be messy in the short term, but in the long term it will dissuade this sor tof behaviour.
Sangloth
I'd appreciate any comment with a logical basis...it doesn't even have to agree with me.
News got it wrong again..
SCO dropped the trade secrets claims.. and only is going to turn over code in 17 files that they claim is infringing 30 days from now after numerous delays..
see groklaw.com for details..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
IBM has told the judge that SCO did not comply with her earlier order to specify their claims precisely (in terms of what Linux code was involved). There was apparently a ~30 minute conference with counsel in chambers before the open hearing. It doesn't sound like the judge was too sympathetic to SCO; from one witness's notes:
From other comments the judge made (see the Groklaw write-up), it sounds like SCO may get one more really final order to lay out the specifics of their case. (Ha!)
IBM did not move for dismissal, to the surprise of some observers. My theory is that IBM thinks they have SCO on the run, and want to make sure there is nothing left of them but a glowing crater when this is all done.
The big news the Slashdot post seems to have missed is that:
SCO HAS DROPPED THEIR TRADE SECRET CLAIM
Remember when this crap all began Darl's mantra was "It isn't about copyright, its about trade secrets." Well, apparently not any more. Highly suggest parusing Groklaw for some great coverage. IBM's court filings from yesterday are brilliant.
So the question is... will Novell sit on the SCO side of the courtroom or the IBM side? Better yet... if Novell is claiming they own the copyright, won't the Novell/SCO issue have to be resolved before the now ammended complaint against IBM can be resolved? My understanding is that once a case is ammended, it must be resolved in full. SCO can't now try to get the contract dispute handled separate from the copyright issue, but the copyright issue is still just that... an pending issue. It'd be pretty sad if SCO had to first deal with Novell, then IBM. They might run out of money first... then they have to start selling the Linux and Unix again.
Oh, and I should add that the copyright infrigement isn't about Linux, its about AIX being distributed by IBM after SCO revoked their license.
But remember, SCO revoked IBM's license due to trade secret violation...
Violations that SCO isn't going to legally persue
Which rhymes with Catch 22
Which sums up SCO's claims now quite nicely.
As SCO's stock price continues to plumet amid growing speculation that their whole lawsuit lacks merit....
...My God, look at that stock price rise!
Wait, this just in...SCO has just upped the lawsuit agianst IBM to 100 trillion dollars...
(Back at SCO headquarters)
Darl: MUAHAHAHAHAHA
-------------
Actually, for this to be a proper example, there also needs to be an attachment of Darl's private fortunes. If the CEO can get away with his pockets full, then it isn't much of an example. If a company is dying, the CEO doesn't care about the company, he cares about himself. So unless you ensure that HE has to pay, you haven't discouraged copycats very effectively.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
MS won't buy. If they did, they'd purchase the legal liabilities as well as the benefits. And then IBM would dig in for damages. And lots of contingency lawyers would start courting everyone who ever contributed anything to the kernel. And every company that did consulting in Linux.
No. There was a good reason that MS wanted this kept at arms length. If they wanted closer ties, they could have had them cheaply a year ago. (All they needed to do is offer to guarantee 4 profitable quarters and Darl would have done nearly anything.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
SCO's case is completely falling appart.
Apparently, the new copyright claim is that IBM continued to distribute AIX even after SCO "terminated" their license.
In other words, the copyright claim doesn't have anything to do with the alleged copying of code from SysV to Linux.
Additionally, SCO responded to IBMs interrogatory (asking which Linux files SCO claims any rights to) by listing only 17 files (and not identifying specific lines in those files) and indicating that none of these 17 files contain code from SysV.
I really expected them to do much better. I don't see how IBM can be ordered to proceed with discovery given existing case law. (Although it seems like IBM might voluntarily produce information so they can limit SCOs avenues of appeal.
>SCO's comments in the media are not SCO's legal case. That's another
>matter entirely, and one that has been considerably more carefully
>orchestrated.
Interestingly, IBM referenced SCO's public statements in their filing today: http://pacer.utd.uscourts.gov/images/203cv00294000 00103.pdf
The document states that "SCO has identified no more than approximately 3,700 lines of code", then quotes Darl McBride comments at Harvard this week saying "[T]here is roughly a million lines of code". IBM concludes that if McBride's statement is true, "then SCO should have identified them in response to the Court's Order."
Bottom line, SCO's public statements are now in play. Their "more carefully orchestrated" media comments are now a major liability.
They replaced the previous claims with the copyright claims because they were completely and utterly able to provide the minimum amount of information during discovery.
So saying the case has been "widened" is wrong.
Also, they didn't add the claims yet. The asked the judge to allow them to add the claims. This is because they missed the deadline to add claims to the lawsuit.
You'd think there would be more reliable information from a place where Linux people supposedly hang out.
They calculated the projected future losses caused by ill will generated in potential customers, losses from counter-lawsuits, contempt of court fees for frivolous lawsuits and fraud, etc, and the previous $3 billion they were asking for wasn't enough to cover it.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
As from the SCOX Message board (found on Finance.Yahoo.com): IBM's Report on SCO's Compliance with the December 12th order. http://pacer.utd.uscourts.gov/images/203cv00294000 00103.pdf
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
The SCO Group's stock symbol is SCOX not SCO.
The SCO Groups' market cap is $190M and falling
---- There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't
They might run out of money first... then they have to start selling the Linux and Unix again.
Who'd buy it from them?
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Report on SCO's Compliance With the Court's order sums up the whole fiasco pretty well I think. It's a line from Paragraph 5:
Duh! And Darl wants $5 Billion for this?!?! For what exactly? I can't wait for the stomping to commence.
And, of course, Groklaw has a summary of today's court action. Basically SCO ends up looking stupid again.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
Basically SCO ends up looking stupid again.
Can the judge moderate them -1 redundant?
I still think they're going after the angle that JFS, NuMA, et al (basically anything that looks or smells like Unix) are "derivatives" of SysV, and their ownership of Unix means that they control everything related. Thus, IBM shouldn't have contributed to the kernel without first asking SCO's permission. This, I believe, is the heart of their case (they are also still saying there's actual SysV code in Linux, but haven't show squat legally and isn't part of the case as far as I know).
Of course, this is going to be hard to win since it requires them to prove:
a) the license with IBM actually gives them control of derivatives
b) IBM's code is a derivative of SysV
Frankly, I thought they had a much better chance with the Trade Secret stuff since there may have been some Monterey issues non of us knew about. The "derivative" argument seems like one hell of a stretch considering copyright and contract law along with the *BSD settlement.
Basically, though, the new copyright stuff seems pretty damn empty. I'll be surprised if it goes anywhere.
Nope, the problem is when the "wall" is really one part of one blade of a giant fan and the owner finally decides to turn it on.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Yes, that is the big news, someone please mod that Insightful. IBM, in not filing for summary judgement against SCO, seems to be saying that they want case law on this one. A dismissal means anyone, even SCO (unless it is dismissed with prejudice) if they are sufficiently imbalanced (and I believe they may well be) can come along and try the same thing again in the future, either with Linux or some other piece of FOSS to which IBM has contributed.
If IBM goes to trial and wins a crushing victory over SCO in court, then countersues for damages and bankrupts SCO (although simply losing this case will probably do that on its own) and then buys them up for pennies on the dollar out of bankruptcy and fires all of senior management, no one will dare try something like this again, even if they think they might have a case. The price to be paid for failure will scare them off. Put more simply, IBM will probably seek not only case law, but to make an example of Darl and friends.
And how would you like to be Darl, looking for your next job when this is all over, with the most prominent entry on your resume being something like "Embarked on frivolous and ill-fated lawsuit against IBM, sent my then-employer into bankruptcy as a result, seeking challenging position at tech company." He'd be lucky to get a challenging position emptying the wastebaskets. Of course, he's made millions selling SCO stock since this fiasco began, he'll never need to work again. These executive types seem addicted to work, so he'll probably try, but I bet that will be one long, hard job search.
I think IBM recognizes this situation exactly as the shakedown that it is, and sees perfectly well that if they give in it in any way, even taking a summary judgement and getting no case law, that anyone else thinking about shaking down IBM would be tempted to try it. They also know, as the oldest practioner of FUD in the computer business (heck, they invented it; every old mainframer like me knows the saying "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"), that they dare not give quarter. As with any shakedown, giving in or giving quarter will only incite others to go after you. If you bust up the one who's trying to shake you down and make an example of him, nobody will dare. That, I think, is what IBM has in mind for SCO.