Slashdot Mirror
AutoZone Granted Limited Stay in SCO Copyright Case
michael path writes "From Yahoo: Judge Robert C. Jones on Monday denied AutoZone's request to transfer its copyright case with The SCO Group from Nevada to a Tennessee court, but also granted a limited stay to the auto parts chain."
Man.. this is getting all so boring. It will just drags out for years. Wake me up just before SCO get crushed.
Friends don't let Friends use Internet Explorer.
The "stay" has very little power to it. It basically says that there will be no more major courtroom events for the next 90 days, meanwhile the discovery phase of the case is still ongoing and SCO can still try to peer into AutoZone's operations through that process. All we know for sure now is that it won't be going to trial nor be dismissed in the next 90 days, unless the judge doubles back on his own ruling which is also possible so... uhm, what does this tell us?
This is not any ruling on the merits of the case, nor a firm concurance with AutoZone's agreement with SCO's own request that the case be delayed until IBM v. SCO is settled. There's really not much news in this... but this is Slashdot where any action in the SCO lawsuit is reported.
Wake me when it's over...
SCO's principal argument in opposition to AutoZone's motion is that it will suffer irreparable harm if the case is stayed.
.... From the track record they have of suing people. And isnt it impossible for an almost dead company to suffer more harm ? Oh..I get it .. The SCO executives when looking for new jobs say "We almost won, but the court stayed the case and we suffered irreparable harm"
Well I thought they loved that
You can SCO to hell, SCO to hell and die!
Honestly, I think they are jumping the gun suing before the courts have ruled on their copyrights. I imagine AutoZone could countersue for extortion if SCO loses the copyright case. They should start the procedings now, maybe it would keep SCO in their place for awhile.
Make America grate again!
According to Groklaw, this is not true. They say the issue of transfer is undecided. That is different than denied AutoZone's request to transfer.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Dude, you come here for cutting-edge newsbreaking? That's the job of something like Google News, not Slashdot. I come here for the type of content, not how fast it gets posted.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
What I still can't understand is what is holding their stock price up? It's just refusing to stay below the $5 point. Natural floor value, my @ss!
Seriously, are there some big boys playing games here to keep them alive at the $5 level? For someone like Microsoft the amount of money required would be negligible, but if SCOX hits it's natural penny stock level, the lawsuit and company will be gone.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Yeah, it seems that Yahoo News doesn't really understand what's going on here, does it?
It's pretty straightforward....Autozone was granted the stay, with 90 day review periods (just like the RedHat case). Their 90 day review takes place after the RedHat review because the Autozone case depends on the RedHat case being decided as well.
The transfer wasn't even discussed in depth because until the stay is lifted, it's moot.
Insanity is a gradual process; don't rush it.
Autozone drags SCO to Tennessee because:
Autozone is headquartered there
They don't spend a zillion dollars hiring a Nevada law firm or sending their attorneys there
It's less distracting to the business
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Back on Saturday there was a far more interesting Groklaw article discussing Red Hat's letter to the judge in their case. They lay out in clear detail the contradictory stories SCO has been telling in the different courtrooms across the country in an effort to convince her to lift the stay and let them smoosh SCO's Linux copyright claims into the mud. This, I think, is probably where we'll want to be paying some attention next.
And the brethren went away edified.
This is a big loss for SCO. Any case they bring against a Linux user is going to end up on hold like this. This totally derails their licensing strategy, because their threat to sue is now empty.
SCO may try harassiing AutoZone with discovery, but it won't work.
Of course, IBM might win its summary judgement on the copyright issue on August 8th. If that happens, the AutoZone and Red Hat cases will be unstayed. Those parties will presumably file for summary judgement and win..
You may not have asked for the right thing.
There are no options written for SCOX, and there never have been. See here for yourself. Had there been PUT options available, you could have bought those to make money when SCO's stock price crashed. The good thing about options: if you simply buy calls and puts, your loss is limited to your original investment.
Selling short does not involve option trading. It is effectively borrowing stock from holders of SCO at your brokerage and selling it, with the hope that you will be able to buy it back at a lower price to close out the position. If the stock price skyrockets, your potential loss is limited only by how high the price rises. There's a phenomena known as a "short squeeze", where short sellers try to close out their position by buying the stock, which only pushes the price higher.
In order to sell short, you must have a margin account. Depending on the brokerage and the specific stock, margin requirements are different. At mine (Fidelity), the margin requirement for SCOX is 60%, which means you would have to put up $6,000 in cash or marginable equities to short $10,000 of SCOX stock. They also have a minimum account balance.
50% is the initial Federal requirement (at the time of the short sell). Fidelity normally allows the margin requirement to drop to 35% (after the initial short) before issuing a margin call -- which requires you to deposit more cash or close out the position. The 60% margin requirement for SCOX indicates a significantly higher risks.
Part of your problem may have been your lack of knowledge about the terminology and being able to accurately articulate what you wanted to do. The SEC requires brokerages to assess whether clients understand the risks of option trading. I don't know if they are required to do the same for margin trading.
A recording of the hearing (30 minutes, 29 MB) is at sco.petrofsky.org/autozone-2004-07-12.mp3 and www.users.cloud9.net/~terrapn/Courtroom%207D%20-%2 012-07-2004.mp3
I know the first URL won't survive much of a slashdotting, not sure about the second. Please mirror it somewhere better if you're so inclined. (No, this is not a bootleg recording. I obtained it from the clerk on Tuesday.)
Below are the notes I wrote on Monday after attending the hearing. One correction: at the hearing, the judge did not actually make any order on either motion, but my understanding was that in the aftermath of the hearing he would issue orders denying the motion to transfer venue and granting the motion to stay (with, as an exception to the stay, an opportunity for SCO to move for a preliminary injunction, and to conduct one round of discovery to attempt to support such an injuction).
No orders have yet been issued, so it's impossible to say *exactly* what they will be. The official minutes of the hearing were written on Wednesday, and are not yet available either, but the heavily abbreviated caption to the minutes is now showing on the court's (subscription-only) docket access site and reads like so:
dtd 7/12/04: CT Recorder: Lilia Abarca De Carter: Re: Hrg on mtn for stay (#10) & mtn to transfer (#9), ORD case is stayed for 90 dys, Ptys will be allowed disc as to issue of prelim injunct. Cnsl directed to prepare ord for CT sign. cpys dist
It appears that the court may be neither officially granting nor denying the venue change at this time. It appears that all the activity contemplated at the hearing (the preliminary injunction process and the submitting of letters every 90 days) will occur in the Nevada district, so my understanding is that the venue change has in effect been denied for now, but the court may revisit it when the stay is lifted, without the motion having to be made again.
Here are my initial notes, posted Monday at finance.messages.yahoo.com
Subject: Venue change denied, stay mostly granted
AutoZone's motion for a change of venue (to Tennessee) was denied. The case will stay in Nevada.
Judge Jones said he will follow Judge Robinson's lead and stay the case indefinitely, like the Red Hat case was, with the parties to send him updates on all the other actions every 90 days.
However, he will give SCO a chance to file a motion for a preliminary injunction to be in effect during the stay, and he will allow one round of discovery to facilitate such a motion.
That is, if SCO believes that it will be irreparably harmed during the stay, it may ask for an order that, during the stay, AutoZone is not to engage in whatever the harmful activity is. SCO will have thirty days to propound any discovery requests (interrogatories, document requests, or depositions) that are necessary for its preliminary injunction motion, and AutoZone will have thirty days to respond to them.
The case will be stayed indefinitely, pending other cases, regardless of the outcome of SCO's request (should it decide to make one) for a preliminary injunction, which would just describe what things (if any) AutoZone needs to refrain from doing until the stay is ended.
AutoZone asked the judge to reconsider the part about the preliminary injunction, pointing out that SCO has never sought a preliminary injunction (which has quite stringent requirements) against anyone, and that it's very difficult to imagine that SCO could show sufficient grounds for a preliminary injunction, because the only thing SCO wants with respect to the infringing conduct i