Slashdot Mirror
Licensing an Abandonware Game?
WolverineOfLove writes "I'm recreating a 1980s abandonware game with copyrights that have been seemingly unused for the past 18 years. The situation is detailed further in a Slashdot journal entry I just wrote, but in short: Is it worth dealing with all the copyrights and paying money if I want to recreate an abandonware title as an open source game? I know there are legal implications to certain decisions I might make, but there is a real possibility that this game's copyright holder will do nothing with the rights, and I'd much prefer preserving it for others than letting it fade away."
What about copyright? You might rapidly discover that `abandonware` is a meaningless term legally; not only that, but that a company owns the rights to the game and will come after you for a lot of money should your game before profitable for them to do so.
Abandonware can mean that the company that owned the copyrights no longer exists, and the ownership of the copyright is in limbo. Look at Transport Tycoon for example. The copyright was transferred to a company from a company that no longer exists to a company that no longer exists, and thus nobody can defend the copyright to the game. This is the epitome of abandonware and it's what allowed OpenTTD to exist.
Disagree != mod troll.
Not necessarily. It depends on the issue date of the patent.
In particular, if issuance of the patent was delayed, it may be issued for longer than 20 years.
For instance, if the patent was filed for in 1994 and issued in 2000, it could be 7 more years before it will expire, PLUS a number of additional years, according to the issuance delay.
Also, some special types of patents (as in gov' patents) can get terms much longer than 20 years.
Assuming is not good here, unless you have looked up the patents in question, you cannot really be sure they would have expired by now.
I know there are legal implications to certain decisions I might make, but...
But nothing. You're asking a legal question, you need to go to a legal expert. Slashdotters are not legal experts, they just think they are, and their advice is worse than useless.
As a supposed legal expert (yes, IAAL), I can advise that if it cannot be positively determined that copyright is not in force (and after only 18 years it seems impossible that it would not be) then yes, without permission you could be sued, very likely successfully-- but then, the copyright holder may not wish to sue, and as another post noted, even be supportive. Be sure to get that expression of support in writing. (And be sure the author and copyright holder are one and the same.)
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_registration
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.