Guest squirreleater Posted June 18, 2010 Report Share Posted June 18, 2010 In a rather strange more, HTC have issued a cease and desist letter to a website that offers roms for uploading. The website Shipped roms has been issued with a cease and desist letter by HTC. They state the usual legal guff about 'intellectual property' and 'artwork' etc etc. Seems a strange move as many many site have for many years offered modified and standard roms for uploading and use .Windows mobile has been kept going long after it's sell by date thanks to rom cookers. Quite why they have done this I guess we will never know, and why they have picked on a small site that has only been running a few weeks as well? You would have thought the likes of XDA would be a better target if you want to stop this sort of activity. I guess this would apply to sense roms and not vanilla android. Thanks to Intomobile Edit: I've pasted a bit from engadget below, it explains things a bit better.Plus I've changed the title to be less dramatic! Quote HTC: "While HTC tries to take a hands off [approach] about the modder / ROM chef community, this site's sole purpose [is] to make HTC's content available for download from a source other than HTC. That content is not just the open source parts and kernels of Android but all of the software that HTC itself has developed. This is a clear violation of our copyrights and HTC needs to defend itself in these cases." Engadgets take on this: In other words, these guys are just really against hosting official ROMs on unofficial servers. Anyone can dump a ROM from a phone and flesh it out, so we can't imagine there's any competitive concern -- and no first-party site makes so many firmware builds available for so many devices in such a concise, well-organized way as Shipped ROMs is doing. Ultimately, it's HTC's property -- it seems like they're probably in the legal right here -- but the unsavory PR effect with some of the company's staunchest enthusiasts makes the endeavor more trouble than it's worth, we'd argue. Tread carefully, HTC. Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2010 2:50 PM To: ‘[email protected]’ Cc: XXXXXXXXXX Subject: Cease and Desist Letter of HTC ROMs posted on your website Importance: High Dear Sir or Madam: I write to you on behalf of HTC Corporation (“HTC”), a Taiwanese company with a global business, who is the owner of certain intellectual property (“HTC¡¦s Intellectual Property”). It is our understanding that you are responsible for the hosting of an internet webpage located at http://shipped-roms.com (the “Site¡¨). HTC has also recently learned that the Site contains software/ROM related to HTC¡¦s Intellectual Property which entails illegal copying of HTC¡¦s original art work. We have very strong reasons to believe that the HTC Intellectual Property was illegally obtained by fraudulent means. The subject dissemination and publication of HTC¡¦s Intellectual Property is in clear violation of HTC¡¦s legal rights and is an infringement of the HTC¡¦s copyrights, goodwill, as well as the other intellectual rights. The continuing distribution of HTC¡¦s Intellectual Property without authorization has constituted a serious criminal offence under the Copyright Act in the U.S. and the EU and other countries where similar laws are enforced. As you would expect, HTC is the owner and the use of the copyrighted work described above has not been authorized by the owner. By publishing and displaying the Intellectual Property on the Site, you, as the publisher, along with the information source are infringing HTC¡¦s Intellectual Property rights, including but not limited to causing HTC irreparable harm. For the above reasons, HTC requests that you immediately remove the Intellectual Property from the Site or of all infringing works derived from the Intellectual Property. You shall desist from this or any other infringement of HTC¡¦s rights in the future. The above information is true and correct. If we have not received an affirmative response from you within two weeks indicating that you have fully complied with these requirements, we shall take further legal action, and pursue all means necessary to protect HTC¡¦s legal and equitable rights. HTC reserves all its rights against you, including legal and equitable remedies. Best regards, Legal Counsel HTC Corporation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Davey IJzermans Posted June 18, 2010 Report Share Posted June 18, 2010 So.. Is Modaco going to comply with this too if this happens? I just bought an Ad-Free pack... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Lupus77 Posted June 18, 2010 Report Share Posted June 18, 2010 For now, it doesn’t look like HTC will be going after the developer community, just those who are hosting and distributing HTC’s official ROM builds. Let the cooking continue! http://www.htcsource.com/2010/06/htc-slaps...d-desist-order/ So I suppose cookers are safe for now, they just don't want others to distribute the original HTC roms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Davey IJzermans Posted June 18, 2010 Report Share Posted June 18, 2010 http://www.htcsource.com/2010/06/htc-slaps...d-desist-order/ So I suppose cookers are safe for now, they just don't want others to distribute the original HTC roms. I certainly hope so.. Just out of curiousity, is, because of this, cooking disabled at this point? I can't bake no ROMs since today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TheUnlockr Posted June 18, 2010 Report Share Posted June 18, 2010 Relax everyone. This is only pertaining to HTC's original ROMs. They don't want the original shipping ROMs to be able to be downloaded from anywhere but directly from HTC themselves is all. Here is what they said in reply to Engadget asking them about the cease and desist. "While HTC tries to take a hands off [approach] about the modder / ROM chef community, this site's sole purpose [is] to make HTC's content available for download from a source other than HTC. That content is not just the open source parts and kernels of Android but all of the software that HTC itself has developed. This is a clear violation of our copyrights and HTC needs to defend itself in these cases." Read the first line, they are well aware of custom ROMs etc. they respectively look the other way / don't care. Here is Engadget's full article: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/17/htc-sla...-desist-letter/ Happy cooking! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HustlinDaily Posted June 18, 2010 Report Share Posted June 18, 2010 That makes sense. People take the roms and port it to non-HTC devices. Last thing HTC wants given how many people buy their devices because of Sense Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest squirreleater Posted June 18, 2010 Report Share Posted June 18, 2010 Relax everyone. This is only pertaining to HTC's original ROMs. They don't want the original shipping ROMs to be able to be downloaded from anywhere but directly from HTC themselves is all. Here is what they said in reply to Engadget asking them about the cease and desist. "While HTC tries to take a hands off [approach] about the modder / ROM chef community, this site's sole purpose [is] to make HTC's content available for download from a source other than HTC. That content is not just the open source parts and kernels of Android but all of the software that HTC itself has developed. This is a clear violation of our copyrights and HTC needs to defend itself in these cases." Read the first line, they are well aware of custom ROMs etc. they respectively look the other way / don't care. Here is Engadget's full article: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/17/htc-sla...-desist-letter/ Happy cooking! Thanks for that, as you were posting I found Engadgets article and have added their take on this to my post. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LouiS22 Posted June 19, 2010 Report Share Posted June 19, 2010 Blame HTC! They should focus on developing and fixing issues in current ROMs. And yes, 2.1 for Hero, and 2.2 for Desire... And now, not in december! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Chris Jenx Posted June 19, 2010 Report Share Posted June 19, 2010 Blame HTC! They should focus on developing and fixing issues in current ROMs. And yes, 2.1 for Hero, and 2.2 for Desire... And now, not in december! Before everyone gets into a rage over this. Has this been authenticated with HTC? Sending a C&D over an email is very unprofessional. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jdwis Posted June 22, 2010 Report Share Posted June 22, 2010 Just a thought.. I feel its a kind of thing from ii-Phoone people who might be trying let Android people down just because Android is unbeatable? To my understanding, mainly Android is based on Linux Kernel & Linux Kernel is under GNU and these whole thing is based on Open Source which means modifying the code is not the issue here. Its just the original ROM is hosted on some server not authorised by HTC which seems quite ok, nobody generally would like their work hosted some where else unless without permission, in that case they should have hosted it on the servers which does not care much for the Right & Regulation Acts etc... I dont think any of android community is in any kind of danger... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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