Re: News items from a2central.com

[Roy and/or Janet Miller <millers@inetnebr.com>]

Andy McFadden wrote:

> Owning the copyright and having the right to distribute copies are not
> the same.
>
> Generally speaking, a publisher is not going to go through all the trouble
> of promoting a product unless they have an exclusive right to distribute
> the product.  Otherwise, you could sign on with two or three publishers,
> let them all promote what you're selling, and then turn around and sell
> it yourself.
>
> For example, I owned the rights to the HardPressed source code, but WestCode
> Software was the only way to buy it.  They also held the trademark on the
> name.  Before putting it up on my web site, I asked WestCode for permission.

Thanks Andy. Question though. Software Arts owned Visicalc, but VisiCorp was the
distributor. At some point there was a dispute, and SA got the rights to distribute
Visicalc (and VisiCorp had to sell FlashCalc instead.) How does that bit of history
reflect on the Merlin products?

Roy