Editing ARC (file format) (section)

== Lawsuits ==
In the late 1980s a dispute arose between SEA, maker of the ARC program, and [[PKWare|PKWARE, Inc.]] (Phil Katz Software). SEA sued Katz for trademark and copyright infringement. An independent software expert, John Navas, was appointed by the court to compare the two programs, and stated that PKARC was a [[derivative work]] of ARC, pointing out that comments in both programs were often identical, including spelling errors.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.skepticfiles.org/mys4/hendersn.htm|title=Thom Henderson, president System Enhancement Associates voice: (201) 473-5153 data: (201)|first=Fredric L. Rice, Organized Crime Civilian|last=Response|website=www.skepticfiles.org|access-date=15 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140630235252/http://skepticfiles.org/mys4/hendersn.htm|archive-date=30 June 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref>

On August 2, 1988, the plaintiff and defendants announced a settlement of the lawsuit, which included a Confidential Cross-License Agreement under which SEA licensed PKWARE for all the ARC-compatible programs published by PKWARE during the period beginning with the first release of PKXARC in late 1985 through July 31, 1988, in return for {{US$|long=no|62500}}, which at the time was an undisclosed payment amount. In the agreement, PKWARE paid SEA to obtain a license that allowed the distribution of PKWARE's ARC-compatible programs until January 31, 1989, after which PKWARE would not license, publish or distribute any ARC compatible programs or utilities that process ARC compatible files. In exchange, PKWARE licensed SEA to use its source code for PKWARE's ARC-compatible programs. PKWARE also agreed to cease any use of SEA's trademark "ARC" and to change the names or marks used with PKWARE's programs to non-confusing designations. The remaining details of the agreement were sealed. In reaching the settlement, the defendants did not admit any fault or wrongdoing.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONTROVERSY/LAWSUITS/SEA/release.txt|title=Joint press release|access-date=15 March 2018}}</ref> The Wisconsin court order showed defendants were ordered to pay damages to plaintiff for defendants' acts of infringing Plaintiff's copyrights, trademark, and acts of unfair trade practices and unfair competition.<ref>''System Enhancement Associates, Inc. v. PKWare, Inc. and Phillip W. Katz'', No. 88-C-447, [http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONTROVERSY/LAWSUITS/SEA/judgment.txt Judgment for Plaintiff on Consent], E.D. Wisc. (Aug. 1., 1988)</ref>

The leaked agreement document revealed under the settlement terms, the defendants had paid plaintiff {{US$|long=no|22500}} for past royalty payments, and {{US$|long=no|40000}} for expense reimbursements. In addition, defendants would pay plaintiff a royalty fee of 6.5% of all revenue received for ARC compatible programs on all orders received after the effective date of this Agreement, such revenue including any license fees or shareware registrations received after the expiration of the license, for ARC compatible programs. In exchange, plaintiff would also pay a commission in the amount of 6.5% of any license fees received by plaintiff from any licensee referred to plaintiff by defendants, whether before or after the license termination date.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONTROVERSY/LAWSUITS/SEA/agrement.txt|title=System Enhancement Associates vs. PKware, Inc CONFIDENTIAL CROSS-LICENSE AGREEMENT|access-date=15 March 2018}}</ref>

After the lawsuit, PKWARE released one last version of his PKARC and PKXARC utilities under the new names "PKPAK" and "PKUNPAK", and from then on concentrated on developing the separate programs [[PKZIP]] and PKUNZIP, which were based on new and different file compression techniques and archive file formats. However, following the renaming, SEA filed a lawsuit against PKWARE for contempt, for continually using plaintiff's
protected mark ARC, by turning ARC from noun into verb in the PKPAK manual.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONTROVERSY/LAWSUITS/SEA/contempt.txt|title=System Enhancement Associates vs. PKware, Inc|access-date=15 March 2018}}</ref> The U.S. district court of the East District of Wisconsin ruled SEA's motion was denied, and the defendant was entitled to recover the legal cost of $500.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONTROVERSY/LAWSUITS/SEA/contempt.spk|title=United States District Court Eastern District of Wisconsin Case No. 88-C-447|access-date=15 March 2018}}</ref>

The SEA vs. PKWARE dispute quickly expanded into one of the largest controversies the [[Bulletin board system|BBS]] world ever saw.<ref>''BBS Documentary'', Episode 8, [https://archive.org/details/BBS.The.Documentary], Accessed as of 13.07.2012</ref> The suit by SEA angered many shareware users who perceived that SEA was a "large, faceless corporation" and Katz was "the little guy". In fact, at the time, both SEA and PKWARE were small home-based companies. However, the community largely sided with Katz, due to the fact that SEA was attempting to retroactively declare the ARC file format to be closed and proprietary. Katz received positive publicity by releasing the APPNOTE.TXT specification documenting the ZIP file format, and declaring that the ZIP file format would always be free for competing software to implement. The net result was that the ARC format quickly dropped out of common use as the predominant compression format that PC-BBSs used for their file archives, and after a brief period of competing formats, the ZIP format was adopted as the predominant standard.

In an interview, Thom Henderson of SEA said that the main reason he dropped out of software development was because of his inability to emotionally cope with what he claimed was the hate-mail campaign launched against him by Katz.<ref>BBS: The Documentary, Episode 3.03 Compression.</ref>