13.Jun.2025
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Legal dispute: Hyperion can be held liable for copyright infringements
In April 2023, Hyperion won the first lawsuit with Mike Battilana and his
partners: The judge had essentially ruled that the plaintiffs Amino, Itec and Amiga Inc. could not sue for breach of contract or copyright infringement and that the only party entitled to sue - Amiga Corporation - should not be added as a plaintiff to the current proceedings due to a technicality and that it would have to sue separately. The so-called
"Amiga parties" appealed against all three decisions.
The subsequent legal dispute (courtlistener.com)
is characterised above all by the lack of legal representation for Hyperion:
In order to respond to the Amiga parties' initial statement of early August
2023, Hyperion first had to register new lawyers and ask for an extension of
time. However, the new lawyers asked to be released from their mandate as early
as April 2024.
In October and September, Hyperion is given two four-week deadlines to
provide new lawyers - coupled with the clear warning that the company's
response to the Amiga parties' appeal would otherwise be removed from the
file and the court would have to make its decision without taking Hyperion's
position into account. Subsequently, the removal of Hyperion's "Answering Brief" is
ordered on 7 November.
It was not until seven months later that the Belgian company was able to present new legal counsel. In a motion dated 10 June, the new counsel asked for the removal of Hyperion's statement to be reversed: The "nebulous nature" of his predecessors as Hyperion's lawyers allegedly "dissuaded potential attorneys [..] to appear for Hyperion" and Hyperion had long been unsure whether its foreign lawyer Ben Hermans could take over the representation
before the court in Washington.
Only two days later, not only was this request by Hyperion's new lawyer
rejected, but a unanimous judgement was also issued: the decisions of the
previous instance to deny the Amiga parties the right to sue for breach of
contract and not to admit the Amiga Corporation to the proceedings were
upheld. However, the three judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
overrule their colleague on one key point: The Amiga parties can take action
against Hyperion for copyright infringement - copyright law is to be valued
higher here than the "non-aggression" clause from the 2009 settlement agreement, according to the court of appeals.
The "District Court" - i.e. the previous instance - must now once again deal
with the allegation of copyright infringement by Hyperion. Mike Battilana's
"Amiga Corporation" had already opened separate
proceedings against Hyperion in 2019, but these are on hold until the
case discussed here is resolved. We have asked both parties for statements
and will submit them if necessary.
Editor's note: Although an agreement had already been reached between
Hyperion - including current manager Timothy de Groote - and the Amiga parties multiple times, these failed to end the legal dispute because Ben Hermans had withdrawn his agreement at the last moment. As far as we know, there have been no talks between the two parties after the restructuring of Hyperion - according to rumours, the newly appointed director de Groote had refused to
engage in talks, stating that he wanted to wait for the outcome of the appeal hearing first.
(cg)
[News message: 13. Jun. 2025, 10:34] [Comments: 1 - 13. Jun. 2025, 15:59]
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