Vteckidd
01-27-2010, 02:15 AM
Honda-tech founder has day in court
It's seems like these days it's getting a lot harder for me to find time to add to my blog. With Gwen Stefani's 'What You Waiting For' blaring out of my headphones, I write this entry as I sit in an airport preparing to catch a flight to Northern California. You might be thinking what event takes me up to Sacramento? Well, I am going up there to attend the trial between the two founders of the the Honda-Tech website, Dustin Adler and Mike DiCarlo. After almost a year and a half since the initial lawsuit was filed, this case will finally see the insides of a Federal Courtroom in the Eastern District of California.
The short version of the complaint filed is as follows. Dustin Adler alleges that he was a co-owner of RelyNet, and subsequently Honda-Tech. Dustin Adler is the owner of the copyrights for the ZeroForum software that powered Honda-Tech. DiCarlo 'fires' Adler from RelyNet, and then eventually sells Honda-Tech for $2.6MM dollars. Adler is claiming DiCarlo willfully infringed on his copyrights and is seeking damages.
The history can be summarized as follows. When Adler and DiCarlo, two best friends since the 2nd grade, started Honda-Tech, they did so as a hobby (both were employed by various technology companies at the time). They found out that Honda-Acura.Net was losing its hosting capabilities so together they decided to start Honda-Tech.com to provide Honda tuning enthusiasts with a place where they could continue to gather online. Adler took it upon himself to write new message forum software to power Honda-Tech because the UBB software they were using (for the first few months) kept crashing. After writing the Zeroforum software, the two friends believed that they could try and make a business out of selling Adler's ZeroForum software as a 'hosted' message-forum solution.
They decided to launch this new business at Adler's website, ZeroForum.com. From a convenience standpoint, Adler and Dicarlo opted to run the finances and business side of the relationship under the RelyNet name. RelyNet was a company that DiCarlo started when he was in highschool but never did anything with. They used RelyNet because it was already set-up and easy, and DiCarlo and Adler had already been involved together in attempting to turn the RelyNet business into something of value.
Adler alleges that it was an equal partnership with him bringing in the ZeroForum software and DiCarlo bringing the company name. Their roles within RelyNet were distinct as well, with Adler functioning primarily in a technical capacity and DiCarlo taking a general business and administrative role. There was no formal paperwork documenting the business relationship between these two best friends. In 2002, as the RelyNet/Honda-Tech experiment started to make a little money, DiCarlo and Adler decided to incorporate RelyNet, however DiCarlo incorporates with himself as sole share holder. To make a long story short, over the next two years Adler continually asks DiCarlo to issue him his promised shares, with DiCarlo continually procrastinating and citing various reasons why he cannot issue Adler his shares. Finally in August of 2005 Adler arrives at work to find himself locked out and met by a sheriff to escort him off the premises.
Later DiCarlo would sell Honda-Tech.com for $2.6MM with none of the proceeds going to Adler.
I guess we'll find out the final outcome of this dispute soon enough.
I will try and update the Honda community on some of the publicly available details and documents.
It's seems like these days it's getting a lot harder for me to find time to add to my blog. With Gwen Stefani's 'What You Waiting For' blaring out of my headphones, I write this entry as I sit in an airport preparing to catch a flight to Northern California. You might be thinking what event takes me up to Sacramento? Well, I am going up there to attend the trial between the two founders of the the Honda-Tech website, Dustin Adler and Mike DiCarlo. After almost a year and a half since the initial lawsuit was filed, this case will finally see the insides of a Federal Courtroom in the Eastern District of California.
The short version of the complaint filed is as follows. Dustin Adler alleges that he was a co-owner of RelyNet, and subsequently Honda-Tech. Dustin Adler is the owner of the copyrights for the ZeroForum software that powered Honda-Tech. DiCarlo 'fires' Adler from RelyNet, and then eventually sells Honda-Tech for $2.6MM dollars. Adler is claiming DiCarlo willfully infringed on his copyrights and is seeking damages.
The history can be summarized as follows. When Adler and DiCarlo, two best friends since the 2nd grade, started Honda-Tech, they did so as a hobby (both were employed by various technology companies at the time). They found out that Honda-Acura.Net was losing its hosting capabilities so together they decided to start Honda-Tech.com to provide Honda tuning enthusiasts with a place where they could continue to gather online. Adler took it upon himself to write new message forum software to power Honda-Tech because the UBB software they were using (for the first few months) kept crashing. After writing the Zeroforum software, the two friends believed that they could try and make a business out of selling Adler's ZeroForum software as a 'hosted' message-forum solution.
They decided to launch this new business at Adler's website, ZeroForum.com. From a convenience standpoint, Adler and Dicarlo opted to run the finances and business side of the relationship under the RelyNet name. RelyNet was a company that DiCarlo started when he was in highschool but never did anything with. They used RelyNet because it was already set-up and easy, and DiCarlo and Adler had already been involved together in attempting to turn the RelyNet business into something of value.
Adler alleges that it was an equal partnership with him bringing in the ZeroForum software and DiCarlo bringing the company name. Their roles within RelyNet were distinct as well, with Adler functioning primarily in a technical capacity and DiCarlo taking a general business and administrative role. There was no formal paperwork documenting the business relationship between these two best friends. In 2002, as the RelyNet/Honda-Tech experiment started to make a little money, DiCarlo and Adler decided to incorporate RelyNet, however DiCarlo incorporates with himself as sole share holder. To make a long story short, over the next two years Adler continually asks DiCarlo to issue him his promised shares, with DiCarlo continually procrastinating and citing various reasons why he cannot issue Adler his shares. Finally in August of 2005 Adler arrives at work to find himself locked out and met by a sheriff to escort him off the premises.
Later DiCarlo would sell Honda-Tech.com for $2.6MM with none of the proceeds going to Adler.
I guess we'll find out the final outcome of this dispute soon enough.
I will try and update the Honda community on some of the publicly available details and documents.