that's just one of the reasons why Cloanto has kind of a bad reputation among Amiga enthusiasts.
Don't use them unless you want that warm and fuzzy feeling of having legally obtained the Kickstart ROMs instead of just grabbing them from archive.org...
Also Cloanto say they own the ROMs, but they can't prove this.
I think Gateway, and then Acer owns it, but who knows.
I used https://aminet.net/package/util/misc/GrabKickDisk to grab ROMs from my Amigas. But you can just as well grab them from random internet site, check the checksum and be happy and guilt free about it.
You are right in that this has nothing to do with trademarks. Copyright assignments can be researched on this US Government site (here a sample output for "Cloanto"):
I still own Amigas, I have no qualms in using the downloaded ROMs since I could in theory rip them myself, so it doesn't feel like I'm committing any kind of offence (not a lawyer though).
I am afraid you are wrong on two points: there was indeed a license agreement with every Amiga sold (whether enforceable or not, I don't know), but more importantly there were no rights to be waived in the first place.
System ROMs were protected copyrighted works well before the release of Amiga in 1985. See the case of Apple vs. clone maker Franklin:
What you describe is piracy. Your other comment about legality having a "bad reputation among Amiga enthusiasts" makes it seem like the Amiga community is one of criminals. That is sheer madness.
If I'm not using the original PC why not? At this time my Amigas are ~1500 miles away, I'm not sure when I'll manage to reunite with them, but in the meantime I wanted to get back into demo coding again with emulators.
Don't use them unless you want that warm and fuzzy feeling of having legally obtained the Kickstart ROMs instead of just grabbing them from archive.org...