[plug] SCO fined €10 ,000 or CEO goes to gaol

[Col]

Cross-posted from CLUG(with permission) for info

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, 3 September 2003 12:32 PM
Subject: [clug] SCO fined €10 ,000 or CEO goes to gaol


The German action against FUD has shown its teeth...

SCO must pay a monetary fine

SCO Germany has to pay a fine of 10'000 Euro. The basis for this ruling of the 
district court Munich I is an injunction (trans: a rather loose translation 
of "einstweilige Verfgung", a German legal term, and IANAL) of both the 
Tarent company and the LinuxTag exposition. According to this injunction, SCO 
may not allege that Linux contains illegally acquired intellectual property 
of SCO. SCO apparently violated this injuction on their home page, and for 
this reason, Tarent filed for legal court proceedings.

According to a press release of Tarent GmbH, the court blamed SCO to have 
behaved negligently in the operation of their company home page. Even after 
the injunction, the accusation that "end users who use the software Linux, 
can be held accountable for violations of intellectual rights held by SCO" 
could be read on the home page.

Till Jaeger, the lawyer representing Tarent, sees the court ruling as a 
confirmation that SCO's claims have to be considered as "massively damaging 
to business", and that they concern a "very sensitive area". At the expense 
of other parties, Unproven allegations are used to make money out of fear. 
Nobody at SCO Germany was available for comment at present; regarding the 
filing of legal court proceedings, Hans Bayer, CEO of SCO Germany, told c't 
already in the beginning of June: "Our intention was to comply with the 
ruling." He claimed that the violation against the injunction had not been 
deliberate. (anw/c't)



It's also been slashdotted:
	http://slashdot.org/articles/03/09/02/1237244.shtml?tid=123&tid=99

And it's in the inquirer:
	http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11321

-- 
Michael James				michael.james at csiro.au
System Administrator			voice:	02 6246 5040
CSIRO Bioinformatics Facility	fax:		02 6246 5166