<<It may have been a mistake, but "Joe Smith", as the duly appointed
representative of WOTC to release material into OGC, was acting for
and as the company in this case. Thus he did have the authority.
>>
This is not necessarily the case. If Joe Smith is the duly appointed representative, but he is given instructions: "release everything as OGC except our art, our characters, and our trademarks", then the fact that he is the duly appointed representative is irrelevant -- he failed to follow orders and he released things he was not authorized to release.
If, however, Joe Smith is empowered to decide what should and should not be released as OGC, provided that the legal team approves of his decisions, then Joe's decisions would equate to company decisions.
<<
If you try to say that he did not have the authority, then you are
invalidating every single file that "Joe Smith" prepared and
released, which I am guessing would be quite a few.
>>
It would not invalidate them. It would raise questions about their validity. As noted above, if his discretion were not absolute, but limited, then 99% of what he releases may be valid with 1% of his decisions being erroneous.
However, once the validity of his releases is called into question, then it raises the concern of Joe having distributed potentially tainted OGC files, portions of which might be recalled at any time.
Lee
