Quote:
Originally Posted by Hrafn
No, this is not "the question". From a legal standpoint: - The 'mutual assent' (also referred to as "meeting of the minds") of the contract would only be broken due to a (material) mutual mistake (e.g. if Bujold thought that the "works" explicitly mentioned in the contract were her paintings, and Baen thought these "works" were her books), or for misrepresentation, fraud, undue influence, or the like. Author 'clarity' on the consequences of the license is simply not relevant.
- The only "question" legally relevant to 5th Imperium (who were in no way a party to the negotiations between Baen and its authors) is whether their publication of the CDs on their site was covered by a relevant and valid license. As it was so covered, this publication was not "piracy" (as Bujold has fallaciously accused) and was not "stealing" (as calvin-c has fallaciously accused). It was in fact perfectly legal (from anybody's "viewpoint").
Lacking a legal leg to stand upon, Bujold was wholly reliant on the goodwill of 5th Imperium to remove her CD from their site, goodwill which she did her best to undermine with her absurd "piracy" accusation. |
Re Point 1 I agree that it must be both material & mutual. The material misunderstanding was whether or not the distribution would be via CD only or via CD & Internet. Some might not consider that material. I do.
The mutual misunderstanding is that Baen apparently believed that Bujold understood what they were telling her. If they knew she didn't understand it then they committed fraud. I doubt that so I think there was misunderstanding on both sides.
As for the stealing, huh? The only people stealing Bujold's work are those who continue distributing it in defiance of her right to control the distribution. That's neither Baen nor 5th Imperium and I'm not sure how you think I said that. I'd only consider it stealing if they did that after being directly contacted by Bujold or her representatives (with cease & desist). Hearing 3rd hand that she doesn't want her works distributed wouldn't necessarily be believable so, in my opinion (FWIW) that wouldn't count as reasonable notice. (Re 5th Imperium I think contact by Baen would count as they were Bujold's representative at the time the CD was published.)