I wouldn't put too much stock in this. The folks at CGL aren't talking, and if they were, we would have heard more detail from more sources better than an un-named drunk who used to work for WizKids.

I think this may be another example of the gamers desire to always want to appear to be an "insider".

Clutch

Just checked PACER, and IMR's involuntary response is posted. I'm not a lawyer so I won't comment on the particulars.

I can summarize: IMR said "no we didn't" and is requesting termination with prejudice meaning IMR is going after the creditors for legal fees.

IANAL and don't know much about the state of Washington except they have pretty mountains, good music, bad coffee, and can't hold onto a basketball team. But, I have been a witness in fraud, IP theft, and commingling cases. What IMR is doing is deny-deny-deny and that's pretty much what I experienced. (Incidentally, it's rather unsettling to have a $700/hr lawyer accuse you of lying. Not saying that's going to happen here, that was just my experience.)

IMR is doing the "smart" thing to protect their interests. I leave others to debate whether or not it is the "right" thing.

In my limited experience with commercial civil cases, the company with the most liquidity and the best lawyers wins. Welcome to the American civil system. With that I ventured into territory protected by DS TOS #4 and so... Good Night and Good Luck

I don't much care for link to a link so I will include a direct link to the documents here.

IMR Legal Response

That opening paragraph hearkens back to language of a few centuries ago.

From CGL's website:




Hmm...

God forbid they revamp their system and streamline it.

I meant to post that earlier. Thanks for beating me to it! I'll probably put it in another thread, so more people see it.

Jason H.

In all fairness, there is streamlining and there is throwing out the system because you can no longer support it. One makes things easier on the company and the customer. The other is a sloppy measure you come to regret later on. If there is a later on. As someone who has designed a few support systems, this is about as "no-no" as you can get. Of course, it doesn't much matter if you don't expect to be doing business in a few months, so take it as you will.

If they didn't expect to be around, they wouldn't bother wasting the time, effort, and money to revamp their system.

But you're right. They should have stuck with, what, eight different addresses instead of just consolidating everything and making it a smoother experience for everyone involved. Totally a better idea.

I find it odd that a company sets up a support email-adress at gmail.com and not at their own website (or one of their own).

While I do applaud it happening, it would of been nice if this email consolidation thingo had happened a several weeks ago, when everyone was scrambling and panicing about their LE orders. I know I've read some people stressing out about their orders being delivered to their old addresses (the ones they lived at over a YEAR ago). In all cases I do -beleive- they did get through, but it did look like it was a bit touch and go at some stages for some.

Well, it could be any number of reasons. First, gmail is free and easy to set up. If their computer people have
left(you know..Adam, Troy, and David), then they might not have anyone in the office at the moment who can
set that up on their server, and they might not have hired someone yet. Second, G-mail is actually used in
business circles. I know a number of businesses in my area that use G-mail addresses for their business e-mail.
Third, gmail is easy to remember. Ever had a case where you could remember the name of the person, but not
the exact server designation?

For me, it makes sense. But, then again, unlike alot of people here, I do not wear a tinfoil cap, and try to find
ways to jam the CIA listening devices implanted in my teeth as part of filling cavities. So, maybe I am just not
conspiracy minded enough...

That was funny for so many different reasons...

Amen.

Wow. The overpaying Wildfire thing just makes that situation all the stranger. And taking a loan from David Stansel's father. This whole thing is just all kinds of odd.

the sad thing is, it's really not.

It'd take me less than a day to completely overhaul how their email was delivered on the back end. I could reroute each of those into whatever single aggregate mailbox I wanted to, I could even invisibly forward that onto my gmail account without time or money.

But if it was an in-house hosting, it wouldn't be difficult to create a few rules to separate out the different email accounts with different subject tags. Then, under any capable email client, I could create rules that would file incoming email into sub folders.

Should take a day, maybe two. The longest thing that it would take to happen would be if I was changing servers and had to wait for the MX records to trickle down to everyone. That usually can be done over the weekend. If I've planned ahead, about a week before the cut-over I set the MX records to expire every six hours. My DNS host takes an ever-so-slightly elevated pounding while everyone gets into the habit. Then, the cutover should trickle down in less than a day and be done by the weekend.

For a company as small as Catalyst is, I could easily build their email system from scratch in a day. Maybe two if I had to unpack the server, rack it, cable it, and update it before starting anything.

I don't have a conspiratorial point to this other than:

Their IT guy is f*cking SLOW. I'd get fired if it took me 2 weeks to get email up and running.

It's probably fair to say they dont have an 'IT guy' by the looks of everything. Not a dedicated one anyways.

They used to...a fine fellow by the name of Adam Jury. Now, they have...who knows? Anyone?

Let's call a duck and duck. IMR has no idea how to handle contact info anymore. If you are running things correctly, at some point your company will grow (for instance, back to where it was before the leak) and you are going to need to change everything back. The system was set up originally because that's how you do business properly, you plan ahead and do the work now so it's there later when you need it. Even if IMR no longer has an "IT guy" on staff, a healthy company (or one run by individuals who will make the competent decisions to keep it healthy) would not filter all of the company contact emails through one address. And not one that includes someone's name. That is sloppy, there is no way around it and there aren't enough people at IMR to call it a bureaucratic mistake. This announcement means that at some point, if they survive as a company, they will be replicating a situation where people have trouble contacting them and following up. A situation that, as the Flatline points out, could be remedied in a day. It's the kind of bad idea that small businesses make when they panic and that's not a good sign.

And even he wasn't a dedicated IT guy, since he was the layout guy and all.

If moving to a gmail account saves them some effort and money during a difficult time, then it doesn't seem like that big a deal

Another potential reason they might have is security. If they think something is compromised, it may be much safer in the short term to use a service like gmail.

Security is definitely a concern. But so is the fact that they are paying for the hardware and services that provide their web presence and that presence includes the email addresses they are ditching. I certainly hope they have gone ahead and changed all the contact info and passwords. Simply asking people to use a different address is a sign that they either cannot secure their digital presence or they are unaware how to do so effectively. Again, panic.

Thanks for the update. At the moment it's still pretty much he said/she said. I'm guessing there will be a breaking-out of emails or documents as evidence.

At least their claim that Sugarbroad isn't technically owed anything may be correct if there was no contract, and no use of any material written by him. Is he credited in any CGL books?

Though it does bring up another example of CGL's business records being a mess. A copy of project manager's email and files should be held by the company.

Sugarbroad wasn't a freelance writer, whatever he did would be invoiced - I can't honestly believe they've lost all the invoices.

The more I think about it the Sugarbroad thing is odd. If he isn't a freelance writer/artist, then yeah, he would have sent an invoice.

If you're trying to get a client to pay a debt they owe you, you re-send the invoice, which reminds the client of the work you've done for them.

IMR's response indicates that they have no record of what work was done, no invoice, no contract, and that means that Sugarbroad hasn't re-sent them an invoice.

Or that they're lying, or that their filing system and books are so inadequate they can't find it. Considering IMR was, as far as I can tell, still trying to audit it's own books to see how much they owe and to whom...I wouldn't put it beyond the realm of speculation.

That their books and filing system is inadequate is a given, I think. But in that case, you keep sending the invoice until any random sheet of paper they pull off their desk has a decent chance of being a copy of the invoice.

And, just because he's an IT/web professional at his day job doesn't mean he can't also be a freelance writer or artist.

I was hoping we'd get some evidence in the reply, but I guess we'll have to wait on that.

Catalyst is throwing everything out and hoping something sticks as knocking any one of them out of the proceeding will reduce the number of viable petitioners below the statutory minimum (3). This will take a long time to resolve itself.

The fact that it's just as easy to set up a professional email account as it to create a personal email account makes it rather disturbing that they choose to go the non professional, personal route.

I mean, why not go the whole unprofessional way and do their business via a hotmail or yahoo account.

But then, they've yet to exhibit much in the way of professionalism as a company, so it's kind of expected.

Speaking from the perspective of a small business owner. No one (well unless you're an accountant) likes to keep the books or detail with admin details like the email server. Doesn't mean you don't have to. If you want to live in $650K+ houses and make really @#$% games for a living at some point you have to do things like pay vendors, pay taxes, and maintain a convenient way for your clients to contact you.

Google Apps Standard Edition is free for the first fifty users. I'm pretty sure IMR is going to weigh in far under that. Very large companies such as Konica-Minolta have migrated all of their email over to Google Apps Premier Edition. Usually for $10 you can go to godaddy and buy any domain and forward the MX records to gmail and... voila!: yourname@yourcompany.com.

In fact, hold on....
Hey - who has shadowrun5.com? Somebody is betting on IMR failing.

Regarding the legal pleadings and strange email contacts. None of it should be a surprise to anyone. It is consistent with both the official news from Hardy and the rumors and allegations from Trollman et. al. We can all agree that IMR is not well managed. Whether or not IMR is maliciously mismanaged and if they are criminally or civilly liable for your actions won't be decided here.

On that, note: To whomever owns shadowrun5.com: Please change the splash page to a picture of a cyberzombie unicorn with an magical focus belly button ring being ridden by a werewolf. It's the only fair thing to do.

No... just, no. So many people love Google's services, but...

I will avoid my normal rant, but I will just say this - between their various assets, they have the signals intelligence capability to rival all but the largest countries - and people give them data for free that most members of the intelligence community have to spend countless resources to get.

All of these assets are protected, from the user end, by a simple password.

I'll stop now.

-M&P

furthermore, if you really READ the TOS, all of the stuff in your emails and so on BELONGS TO GOOGLE.

Is paranoia really this rampant? How do you people live your daily lives without your hearts exploding?

Someone in Portugal apparently.

Is Synner not based in that vicinity? Lisbon perhaps.

I'm sure that's just a coincidence....

Are defense claims admissible as evidence in other cases?

Usually, I'd be inclined to agree, but with Google and Facebook, I think Mind&Pen and Stahlseele are right. These companies are dangerous.

Generally speaking, yes, public record from one case may be raised in another, and a party will usually be prevented from changing it's claims/contentions in the subsequent proceeding (judicial estoppel and/or res judicata). Like many other things in law, though, that's not set in stone. Estoppel is an equitable principle and courts decide when/how to apply it based on the facts of individual cases.

I wonder if they are hiring 'runners?...I could use a change of pace and a little more

I'm not too certain on US law but it appears that IMR filed late and now the creditors have filed for summary judgement to be made against them first thing on Friday morning in the Bankruptcy case.

Links here but rpg.net seems to be running reaaaallll slow.

I don't think that's quite the case. IANAL, but a quick check of the term 'Order of Relief' refers to the START of a bankruptcy hearing. The 21 days was IMR's opportunity to dispute the claim and avoid the hearing. That clock started on the 21st or the 22nd (the plaintiff claims one date, but provides evidence for another, hopefully they're more careful about the rest of the case). That puts 5/17 beyond the 21 day window for either date.

It's essentially assured at this point that there will be a hearing, at which point IMR could provide any evidence to support the claims made in their response, and possibly still get a ruling in their favor. Frankly, even if IMR had filed their response in time, I'm not sure the response was strong enough to have avoided a hearing.

The other paperwork was filing to have the date for the hearing on May 21st, otherwise the earliest court date available is June 18th.

I'm sure urgru can say if that's a correct understanding of the filings or not.

Thanks.

You are certainly right that neither of the orders appears to be signed by the judge, like I said I don't know what this means for the bankruptcy proceedings but it doesn't look good for IMR.

edit

Would the word Petition not appear on these if there was any doubt as to what the Judge does next?

'Petitioning Creditors' is just the legal term for the people filing the involuntary bankruptcy claim. They're petitioning the court for relief. A petition is a request.

Note that documents #1 and #4 actually have a section that starts 'ORDERED'. That's what they want the judge to do. The judge can just sign and date the paperwork, making the order official, or he can have his own order written up. He doesn't have to use the paperwork that the petitioners filed.

EDIT: I would say, very high chance of #1 being signed, I have no idea on #4. My guess is that it won't be. It would leave only a two or three day notice for a hearing, which I doubt that the judge will agree to.

This is exactly right.

What I mean is, when you Petition a Court you are asking for something, politely.

Those didn't read to me like polite requests more foregone conclusions if you see what I mean.

I'm not sure I entirely get what you're saying, but I would agree that #1 is essentially a foregone conclusion since IMR didn't file their response within the 21 day deadline. The petition part was the original bankruptcy filing?

For #4, #3 is the the petition, and #4 is the paperwork/order. Again, neither is a signed order yet, it's the lawyer submitting their request, "we want you to make this decision", and the necessary paperwork, ready-to-go, if the the judge agrees with their request.

It's still possible that the judge could deny the order for relief, based on IMR's response, but I suspect that would be unusual (because it was late) and unlikely (based on the 'strength' of the response itself).

When I left on March 30th, there were physical copies of all Sugarbroad's invoices in a filing cabinet and electronic copies of them in the accounting software that was provided to the Controller and CPA and the owners. There had also been numerous discussions over the satisfactory work performed as well as discussing the fastest way to pay so as to have more work done, with all the directors aware of the exact amount due (I remember one director meeting where the amount was written on a flip chart and all the directors were present and discussing it; that poster sized paper was left up for about a month at all the weekly meetings). Also, lots of people did work that was on an invoice basis - computer programming, editing, indexing, layout, etc.

What happened between March 30th and now... *shrug*