On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 05:35:03 +0000, Bill Vermillion wrote:

> In article <bpe18n$cij$1@news.Stanford.EDU>,
> David Chait <davidc@bonair.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
--snipped--.
>
> Targeting an end user for a suit can backfire.
>
> And historic case goes back to about 1977.
>
> Disney sued a user of a Sony VCR for recording a Disney program
> from television saying it violated their copyrights.
>
> Sony entered the picture on the side of the defendant.
>
> In the end the judge ruled that if a program was broadcast over
> the air by a TV station, then any end user could record the
> program.
>
> This became known as the Betamax case, and when that was settled
> the home vcr movement went forward with explosive growth.
>
> And targetting an HP end user is strange as HP is a licensee
> of Unix from SCO - that version is called HP/UX.
>
> Things just don't sound right in that report.

Try going back further. Shortly after the turn of the century several
automakers went after Henry Ford because he could turn out cars cheaply.
When that failed they went after end users which failed even worse. Has
there ever been a company which sued the customers it wants to
keep/attract and survived? Are you listening RIAA? SCO? Of course not.