Posted for "Chuck Jensen" <cjensen@dts9000.com>:

 Brent's multiple posts all focus on the 'legal' obligations of the
 parties, or at least as he perceived them.  That may be fine for the
 court room, but I've not heard the 'moral' and 'market' obligations of
 the players explored.  They are not one and the same, at least among
 responsible parties that value their reputation.
 
 Even the 'legal' obligations are less clear than it may appear, based on
 agency.  Picking up on Brent's use of real world examples, if I go to a
 car dealer and one of his salemen sells me a car, takes my money and
 tells me to pick it up tomorrow.  And I show up tomorrow and the dealer
 says Sid 'Slick" Sailsman got fired yesterday and he never gave me any
 money, so I guess your out of luck.
 
 Not necessarily.  It depends on agency and who was a legal
 representative of whom.  Clearly, the car salesman was an agent of the
 dealer and the dealer is going to have to pay up.  Certainly, it's less
 clear who D2 was an agent of?  Chelton, Crossbow, PinPoint?  In all
 likelihood, Chelton has a signed agreement with D2 (if they had a
 relationship at all?) that says specifically that D2 is not acting as an
 agent of Chelton, hence D2 can not bind or legally obligate Chelton in
 any way or manner.
 
 Is Chelton home free?  Not at all.  The legal burden may well rest with
 Chelton (or whoever) to prove that D2 was not, in effect, acting as
 their agent.  These things are always fact specific, but responsibility
 may well turn on how D2 represented their product.  If there was any
 implication that this is a Chelton product and 'Chelton makes great
 products and so you know they are good' and Chelton did nothing to
 disabuse the market place that 'this is not a Chelton product and
 Chelton neither endorses or supports it', then the slippery slope for
 Chelton may well have started.  In essence, they were enjoying the
 fruits of the market place while shirking liability by attempting to
 hide behind the veil of a second company.
 
 The above example is are not based on fact or legal opinion (though I am
 writing this from my suite at the Holiday Inn).  The players may not
 even be identified correctly, but the point is this is not necessarily
 as straightforward as it first appears.  It not always as simple as A
 gave money to C who gets his product from B, but since B didn't get any
 money from A, then B is free and clear.  Sounds good, but not always
 true.  It depends on what C represented and what B did to ensure
 accuracy of those representations.
 
 Hopefully, someone will step forward and graciously put forward a
 compromise before the food fight starts.
 
 Chuck Jensen