Centre/SIS GPL violated by The Miller Group

[Matthew Seth Flaschen]

You could just try sending a cease and desist order to 
jgm at miller-group.net .

Matthew Flaschen

Andrew Schmadeke wrote:
> Ah ... I failed to mention that I did not sign any contract with The  
> Miller Group.
> 
> We had a verbal agreement that I would receive a percentage  commission 
> of all support services sold, but nothing further.  Of  course, I'm not 
> receiving commission checks any longer.
> 
> I have consulted a lawyer who agrees I own the copyright.  The only  
> problem is that he says it would be expensive to enforce it.
> --Andrew
> 
> 
> On Mar 16, 2006, at 12:19 PM, Ed Wilts wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 07:39:00PM -0500, Andrew Schmadeke wrote:
>>
>>> I am the author of Centre/SIS which is released under the GPL
>>> license.  This has been distributed through a company I use to
>>> consult for until December as well as freshmeat and  versiontracker, 
>>> etc.
>>>
>>> This company is called The Miller Group (www.miller-group.net).  I
>>> wrote the software as an independent contractor, and therefore own
>>> the copyright.
>>
>>
>> The "therefore own the copyright" doesn't follow.  Just because you're
>> an independent contractor does not mean that you own the  copyright.  The
>> laws vary from one place to another and it also depends on what was in
>> your contract.  It's quite possible that you do not own the copyrights
>> at all.
>>
>>> Shortly after I stopped consulting for The Miller Group, they began
>>> to try to sell a commercial license for Centre to another company.
>>>
>>> I contacted The Miller Group telling them not to do this, and
>>> explaining the violation. The Miller Group has not responded to this
>>> letter.  Instead, they removed the copyright notices that contained
>>> my name from the source code, and republished the software (under the
>>> same version name).  This new copy of version 2.5 also contained a
>>> new file called copyright that says:
>>>
>>> /**
>>> * @version $Id: index.php,v 2.5 2005
>>> * @package Centre
>>> * @copyright (C) 2000 - 2005 The Miller Grouop
>>> * @license http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GNU/GPL
>>> * Centre is Free Software
>>> */
>>>
>>> The Miller Group is also selling add-on modules which I wrote, but
>>> never distributed.
>>
>>
>> Again, they may own the copyrights to these modules and may be  perfectly
>> within their rights to sell these modules.
>>
>>> I'm just a college student, and my lawyer tells me it would cost
>>> between $10,000 and $20,000 to get an injunction.  What can I do?
>>
>>
>> First, do you have proof that you own the copyrights?  If not, you're
>> dead before you go any farther.  Did your contract state that you  get to
>> keep the copyrights to all code that you developed for them?
>>
>>         .../Ed
>> -- 
>> Ed Wilts, RHCE
>> Mounds View, MN, USA
>> mailto:ewilts at ewilts.org
>> Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program
> 
> 
> 
> 
>