Quote:
“… (by Ken Williams)
Doesn’t trademark law have a 17 year timeclock? Does anyone know? Or, is it 75 years? I don’t remember. If it is 17 years, Mystery House is public domain anyhow.
…”
Ken, I think you might be partially right on both measures of time. Copyrights used to last 70 years or so, but were recently moved up to 90 years. Companies like Disney lobby to get the length increased every time early Mickey Mouse cartoons (for example) start nearing their public domain dates. I think we can safely say that these terms will keep increasing forever.
However, there is a “use it or lose it” clause of sorts. The license for the old ’80’s series “The Bard’s Tale” was acquired by an independent company for free to make last year’s remake because Interplay had not done anything with the property for a certain period of time. That might be something like 17 years. The creator of the new “Bard’s Tale” believes that hundreds of games fall under that provision. Worth looking into…
Come to think of it, it must be shorter than 17 years, as the Bard’s Tale games were released in compilations as early as 6 years ago I believe.
Maybe we should be hoping that Vivendi does *not* re-release the old Sierra games.