Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2015 5:38
It would be interesting to see some kind of law inacted to deal with situations where the rights of the creator to their creation are no longer held by them. Like Commander Keen, Wasteland and even Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
Oswald was created by Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney, but were under contract to Universal which fanangled him from underneath Walt. Eventually they stopped doing anything with the character and the Walt Disney Company ended up "trading" him back for sports newscaster Al Michaels nearly 80 years later. Since being grabbed by Disney they were already able to feature him in the platformer game series "Epic Mickey".
Wasteland was the spiritual predecessor to the Fallout series, created by Brian Fargo. He wanted to create a sequel after making the first game but publisher EA moved onto other things. 26 years later Fargo was able to make Wasteland 2 after the rights expired under Konami (go figure how they got them! haha).
This law would recognize two things that all three cases have in common-- the company currently holding the rights has done nothing with the character \ IP and another entity has claimed more rightful ownership. Of course, this would have to be determined case by case (i.e. Tom Hall would have to put together a strong argument as to why he should get Keen back). I'd best describe it as kind of the way custody rights work between divorced parents, in the US. Its also similar to how Marvel negotiated movie rights to other studios-- if they don't make any new movies with those characters, they go back to Marvel, the rightful owner.
There's obviously some exceptions to this; for instance, using this law for Duke Nukem would be a bit murky, as to claiming who exactly owns rightful ownership. Since its debatable whether he was in better hands of the old 3D Realms after Duke Forever...though the Interceptor guys, who now own 3DR, might do better with him...but can they claim proper ownership of Nukem? Secondly, in the case of Spyro, he's technically being used in Skylanders and Insomniac feels they've moved on from the character. Thirdly, Fallout has been really successful under Bethesda, so the original developers can't really claim rights under the first condition. Lastly, Lucas could never claim rightful ownership of Star Wars because he was handsomely compensated for its sale.
However, I think with a law like this Disney and Fargo would've been reunited with their property much sooner, instead of happening to fall upon luck and unless Tom Hall shares the same good deal of luck, he may need some kind of legal "umph" if he ever wants to see those rights again.
Oswald was created by Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney, but were under contract to Universal which fanangled him from underneath Walt. Eventually they stopped doing anything with the character and the Walt Disney Company ended up "trading" him back for sports newscaster Al Michaels nearly 80 years later. Since being grabbed by Disney they were already able to feature him in the platformer game series "Epic Mickey".
Wasteland was the spiritual predecessor to the Fallout series, created by Brian Fargo. He wanted to create a sequel after making the first game but publisher EA moved onto other things. 26 years later Fargo was able to make Wasteland 2 after the rights expired under Konami (go figure how they got them! haha).
This law would recognize two things that all three cases have in common-- the company currently holding the rights has done nothing with the character \ IP and another entity has claimed more rightful ownership. Of course, this would have to be determined case by case (i.e. Tom Hall would have to put together a strong argument as to why he should get Keen back). I'd best describe it as kind of the way custody rights work between divorced parents, in the US. Its also similar to how Marvel negotiated movie rights to other studios-- if they don't make any new movies with those characters, they go back to Marvel, the rightful owner.
There's obviously some exceptions to this; for instance, using this law for Duke Nukem would be a bit murky, as to claiming who exactly owns rightful ownership. Since its debatable whether he was in better hands of the old 3D Realms after Duke Forever...though the Interceptor guys, who now own 3DR, might do better with him...but can they claim proper ownership of Nukem? Secondly, in the case of Spyro, he's technically being used in Skylanders and Insomniac feels they've moved on from the character. Thirdly, Fallout has been really successful under Bethesda, so the original developers can't really claim rights under the first condition. Lastly, Lucas could never claim rightful ownership of Star Wars because he was handsomely compensated for its sale.
However, I think with a law like this Disney and Fargo would've been reunited with their property much sooner, instead of happening to fall upon luck and unless Tom Hall shares the same good deal of luck, he may need some kind of legal "umph" if he ever wants to see those rights again.
