Storix - Story of Anthony Johnson
Thursday, October 8. 2015
Epilogue
This story is so unbelievable, I have to share it with all of you. It has Hollywood material in it: it's a story about a hard working man who succeeds and then gets dealt bad cards. As the final good thing he does share his fortune with people he trusts. Then there is the surprising twist in the plot and he bounces back. The real surprise is when the ungrateful people don't want him back. That results in a bitter fight in the court. But as in all Hollywood flicks, there is a happy end.
All this started years ago, but my version starts two days ago when I received an e-mail. I found it from my spam-box and my initial glace was, that it was some kind of 419-scam. Something in the style of the text struck me as a scam, so I was just about to file a report of it into SpamCop, and then I saw the subject of the mail. It had word Storix in it. The mail was sent to one of my ancient addresses, which I had used with Storix. A random bulk spam wouldn't be about Storix, backups aren't that lucrative when compared to regular spam-topics, women, money or medicine.
The e-mail
This is the entire e-mail as I received it:
Subject: Notice of Copyright Infringement by Storix, Inc.
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2015 16:15:31 -0700Dear Sir or Madam,
This letter is to inform you that you may be in possession of unauthorized and infringing copies of Storix System Backup Administrator (SBAdmin). I am the author of the software, which is protected by US Copyright Registration No. TXu000988741, and expert testimony in the US Southern California District Court case No. 14-cv-1873 H (BLM) has
indisputably determined that I am the owner, have never transferred, nor received any consideration for its license by Storix.I hold none of Storix' customers or business partners accountable, and you may continue using the current software, even if you received an infringing license after it was revoked. However, I must demand that you cease any further payment to Storix in relation to this software and refrain from downloading any further copies.I founded Storix in, Inc in 2003 to sell and support the software I had already been marketing since 1999. In 2011 I was diagnosed with terminal cancer and gifted 60% of the company shares to long term employees before taking my medical leave. Those shareholders then elected themselves as directors and officers of the corporation:David Huffman, President and CEO
Richard Turner, Director of Software Development
Manuel Altamirano, Director of Sales and Marketing
David Kinney, Director of Software SupportNo new programmers were hired, and the software has now seen little change in over 4 years. After an unlikely recovery, I returned to the company full time in 2013 to continue development of the software, working alone for 9 months on major enhancements to address known security vulnerabilities and increase the network security. After requesting that others assist in the final development and testing, I was harassed by my former employees until I left in May, 2014.After exhausting every effort to negotiate, the board was notified that I would assert my rights to the software if not given a position of control over its development. Instead, they chose to challenge my copyright. Using my remaining 40% stock, I took control of 2 board seats, but not before a 5th seat was added and occupied by David Smilkjovich, the new CEO and personal friend of Mr. Huffman. Every effort since to save the company, its employees and customers from the damages of this litigation has failed in a 3/2 vote.As Storix has been well aware since my departure, I continued development of the software, believing we would eventually work out our differences. I made no effort to disparage or compete with Storix in any way. Yet, as a decision in the copyright case grew near, they filed new action against me for unfair competition and breach of duty as a company director (San Diego County Superior Court No. 37-2017-00028262-CU-BT-CTL). After I warned them in advance of this very notice, they requested, and were denied, a motion for temporary restraining order (San Diego US District Court Court No. 14-cv-1873 H
(BLM)).Although a plaintiff in the copyright case, I'm also a 40% shareholder and a director of the company, and am obligated to do everything possible to put an end to this nonsense before the company is lost. Iwould have preferred the customers and employees remain unaware of this needless battle, but the actions taken by these individuals to protect their majority positions have resulted in the company becoming unprofitable for the first time in its history. They will accept no personal responsibility or compromise, and are now turning to a new employee stock incentive program to cover their losses. This nonsense
cannot continue.The security enhancements to the software have been completed, along with much more. Unfortunately, far too much damage has been done to me personally and financially to allow these greedy individuals to profit from my work any longer. Many of you I had worked with personally for many years, so it pains me to inform you that support for Storix SBAdmin
will very likely end when a ruling is made on the copyright case at the end of the month.Whatever the eventual outcome, I sincerely hope to rebuild your trust as well as the thriving company and innovative product I once had.Best Regards,
Anthony Johnson
Author and Owner of Storix Backup Administrator
Former President/CEO, Storix Inc.
Show me the proof!
Ok, this is all sad and cool at the same time, but how do we know that all this is legit? I don't have any solid proof, but here is what I have:
- My own records indicate, I've been using Storix back in 2004 to 2009 when I did DLT backups. Then the company got greedy and the price of licence went out of my reach. At that point, I stopped doing tape-backups and went for Bacula and USB-drives. Software free and USB-drives are very inexpensive to store backups.
- The e-mail in question may very well be sent to me, because I have a customer account at Storix, Inc.
- In the e-mail Mr. Johnson wants you to: pretty much do nothing, he doesn't want your money, he just says not to pay any more to the software company not owning copyright of his work, but he does not want you to pay him for it. Asking for nothing is not a typical request in spam.
- Motive: What would be the alternate motivation or hidden agenda for doing this? Throwing mud at his own company? Slinging mud at some people he doesn't like (anymore)? I guess, the classic ones: money and power have something to do with this. Depleting Storix, Inc. main source of turnover is the primary motive.
- The origin of the mail is from Google. Yes, there is some Google spam, but no way it can be considered as a major source of crap.
- Google got the mail from a Comcast user located in Miami, Florida. Again, there is no typical source of hijacked computer, it can be any, even from Florida. However, it would be very unlikely scenario for a malware to hijack Google credentials for sending misinformation from a random Comcast user.
- There is a man in Linkedin with name Anthony Johnson claiming to be author of Storix
- There is a man in Linkedin with name David Huffman claiming to be the CEO of Storix, inc. He is registered as the president of the business entity C2494479 in California.
- There is a legal case 3:14-cv-01873-H-BLM in California Southern District Court, it is Johnson v. Storix, Inc.:
- Lawsuitdata.com
- RFCExpress.com
- I don't know which, if any, of the documents contain the judge's ruling.
- If assumed, that the judge ruled as the e-mail explains, it would be obvious for not to pay for a product to somebody who doesn't own it. That would be fraud if anybody else than a legal owner would ask for you money.
When all of this is combined, there are two possible scenarios left: either this is the weirdest scam I've seen, or it is all true. My take here is: after looking, searching and using my own judgement, I believe the above story of a complete stranger. I sympathize all that happened to him. I also believe, that people shouldn't be thrown out of their own companies, that's just wrong.
Pitch in with a comment, if you have some knowledge of this. I'll be waiting for the movie. 
Update 9th Oct 2015:
It's given, that I replied to the mail. I sent the link to this article and told that he has my support.
This is what he wrote back: "Wow, quite an endorsement, and no, it's definitely not a scam. Thanks!"
anonymous on :
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151218005876/en/Storix-Wins-Copyright-Case-District-Court
Jari Turkia on :
Anonymous on :
Jari Turkia on :
I wouldn't publish any private messages you sent me, either.
Anthony Johnson on :
Meantime, they're after me for over $1.3M in legal expenses and suing me for illegal competition. No such thing, but it hardly matters since they they've filed enough motions, quashes and objections to keep me spending until after the appeal can be heard. Not sure if I have more disdain for my former employees or the legal system at this point. But it will be over soon.
Anonymous on :
http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20FDCO%2020160818B52/JOHNSON%20v.%20STORIX,%20INC.
I have some distant knowledge of the actual incident. The poor guy got sick and had to leave the company in his friends hands. He sold them majority ownership in the company, basically cashing out. Several years later when he didn't die as expected, he came back and wanted to run the company he'd sold. The guys had built things up since then and significantly added to the product. Johnson was no longer able to keep up or help, so he chose to leave.
There was no animosity from the Storix employees. They were happy to pay him VERY LARGE residual payments for doing absolutely nothing (his right as a shareholder). Rather than move on to another project, Johnson got offended and declared personal war on his former friends. (read his e-mails in the above link) Now as you can see in the legal briefs, Millions $$$$ have been spend, enriching nobody but the attorneys and hurting the reputation of the company he still owns a minority stake in. A large chunk of that legal money would have been his if company profits hadn't been wasted on this case. (Not to mention the distraction and time lost by the employees.)
Anthony Johnson on :
1) The judge found that my copyright case was in no way "objectively unreasonable". But she awarded the company about 40% of its legal fees based solely on the email above. Interestingly, she'd ruled three times before against their injunctions and restraining orders on the basis that the email was within my right and they were unable to show any harm even a year later. She changed her opinion after I filed the appeal of the copyright ownership decision.
2) I did not "sell" my "friends" anything. I gave them 60% of the company for free. They will say anything to distract from their greed and ungratefulness.
3) I never wanted nor tried to "run the company I sold". First, I never sold anything. Second, I never wanted to run it, only to update the software they'd neglected for years. They have nothing to support that claim.
4) They failed to improve the software for over 3 years now. My vast improvements have been waiting in the wings but they've now spent over $2M making sure no one would ever see them. Look at the Storix web site to see the last new release was February 2014, followed only by occasional maintenance fixes.
5) No animosity from Storix employees??? These now wealthy employees were secretly conspiring to force me to sell my remaining stock AFTER I finished the new updates to the software. They wanted those improvements, they just had no intention of sharing the benefits with me. I unknowingly foiled their plan when I terminated my "employment" before they could get their Buy/Sell agreement in place and shore up the funding to buy my shares. I learned about all of this a year into the copyright dispute.
6) "VERY LARGE residual payments", really? First of all, I kept less than 1/3 of my former salary after I left on my medical leave in 2011 just to keep my group medical insurance. They cut off ALL income to me, including all shareholder distributions, 2 1/2 years ago and I've never gotten a single dime since. Meanwhile, they continue to write their own paychecks and use every dime of profits to pay their personal expenses and Storix attorneys yes to bankrupt me before anyone can find out. Oops.
It's interesting that this poster has "some distant knowledge" of every false claim made against me, none of which appear in any official record. But please, go on David. I've repeatedly disproven your false claims, so you keep making them under a hidden identity so as to keep redirecting your despicable actions onto me.
Fun facts: Storix spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on another lawsuit against me for "unlawful competition", and have used the the existence of that lawsuit to deny me any access to any company records. They've amended twice to keep it dragging on, now claiming I "stole" a copy of the software in 2014 when I continued working on it at home. They actually filed the lawsuit against me two years ago when I was already living in Florida, claiming I was operating a competing business in California, and on the morning of a mandatory settlement conference in the copyright case. They can't prove a word of it, but it's still costing me and the company after two years. No one on the Storix board will admit to having filed it, and there's no record of it. But the Storix board won't give it up either, because they refuse to discuss it. Yeah, really.
And here's where it gets really good: Six months ago, I went to the company for the first time to demand, as the largest shareholder and a director, to see the company financials. They immediately called the police, restrained me in the doorway for 90 minutes, and filed a workplace violence restraining order against me, saying I have been stalking all the employees and threatening their lives for YEARS. After another 6 weeks of this BS, I had to fly from Florida to San Diego to again disprove their ludicrous claims (they were shocked when I actually appeared), and the judge dismissed it "with prejudice in its entirety".
18 months of "Storix" using any and every legal means to stop me from seeing my own company's financials at a cost of another $500,000. And they now claim the reason they haven't updated the software in years is because of the high cost of litigation I forced on them. I finally got the financials, and report of hundreds of thousands of dollars of embezzlement and tax fraud have been filed with criminal authorities.
Now they are going to have to answer to claims of breach of duty, malicious prosecution, embezzlement, perjury, forgrey, fraud, conspiracy, assault and more at trial in the shareholder derivative lawsuit against THEM in July. Meanwhile, Storix is desperately trying to delay the copyright appeal until AFTER they can collect the attorney fee award from me. That's because they know the appeals court is never going to uphold their fraudulent jury instructions which contradicted 40 years of actual law and hundreds of other copyright ownership decisions.
I know I probably sound like a loon because this situation couldn't possibly seem plausible. Try losing your house, savings and retirement to the same people you made rich, defending yourself from 3 years of frivolous litigation with no income, and watching helplessly as your life's work is neglected beyond repair. Then try to defend yourself against another character assassination by an anonymous person with "some distant knowledge" and see how well you keep your sanity in check.
Anthony Johnson on :
In 2017, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Johnson v. Storix upheld a copyright transfer involving no written assignment. In that case, the author, Anthony Johnson sold software as a sole proprietor and later incorporated his company in 2003 as Storix, Inc. Eight years later (after being diagnosed with an anticipated terminal illness) he gave 60% share of the corporation to his employees, who later removed him from the company and claimed ownership of the copyrights. The court upheld a jury decision that Johnson had made an oral agreement to transfer the copyright to the corporation upon its formation based on an annual report he wrote and signed a year later stating that he had transferred “all assets” from his his sole proprietorship. The jury rejected Johnson's claim he intended only to transfer the license to sell the software (and not all of his personal assets), and further decided that Johnson became a work for hire upon forming the corporation, thereby also forfeiting all rights to his derivative works.
This is the first case in which a document, not itself a contract or agreement and containing no reference to the copyrights, was considered a “note or memorandum” of copyright transfer, and the first time a sole owner of a company was designated a work for hire for copyright ownership purposes. It’s also the first time that contract interpretation principles, including course dealing, usage and performance, have been used to interpret a term (versus the terms) in a document that is not a contract or agreement.
This serves as a lesson that a “writing” required by the Copyright Act need not necessarily be “clear”, need not be signed by the author in his capacity of copyright assignor, need only contain ambiguous language that “reflects on a transfer of assets broad enough to encompass a copyright”, and the existence and terms of an “oral agreement” may be defined by outsiders who were not parties or had any interest at the time of the alleged transaction in order to avoid liability for infringement.
Anthony Johnson on :
As it turns out, Storix (still under the exclusive control of my former employees) forced me into this litigation in order to conceal that they'd siphoned $475,000 from my company earnings while I was on a medical leave they never expected me to return from.
The same judges accused of bias in the past have stopped at nothing to prevent this new claim from even being heard - since the evidence proves their every decision only served to conceal millions of dollars of embezzlement and tax fraud imposed on Storix by its anonymous board majority and the elite attorneys who protected them.
They've now taken my life's work, my entire company, my home and savings - all because I sent an email to a few of my own customers from which "Storix" claimed a $3,739.14 "loss of employee productivity." Seriously, that's all.
http://www.judicial-abuse.com contains all the case documents proving systematic bias and judicial abuse throughout California and Ninth Circuit courts that could only be exposed a pro se plaintiff with a relentless determination to expose the truth at any cost.