JohnnyCastaway

[Unknown,Unknown]

I read that JohnnyCastaway was created by Sierra. Is that true? I had heard about the screen saver a long time ago but only recently saw it. If sierra did create JohnnyCastaway, why?

Also I read in one of the add books that comes with Sierra games that Mystery House was public domain. Is that true? Can a sequal be made of this game without copyright problems? Is the sourcecode public domain?

Thanks
MXCODER

[Unknown,Unknown]

Sierra did do Johnny Castaway. My memory is that it was Jeff Tunnel’s idea (at Dynamix, one of our subsidiarys).

It never gets the credit, but Johnny Castaway was HUGE for us. I bet at least a million copies were distributed over the years. We should have upgraded it and re-released it, but never did. Too bad — it was a very cool product.

As to Mystery House’s public domain status. My brother, John, did formally announce that the game was public domain — which is an ambiguous statement. Was he making the trademark public domain, or was he making the code public domain? I don’t know, and I doubt he knew at the time.

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.

Realistically, this is a product that Sierra abandoned, long before most the people reading this post were born. I doubt they have retained any rights to the game — but, I’m not a lawyer, so I must say that I can’t answer your question.

-Ken W

[Unknown,Unknown]

I don’t have time to read all of this as lunch is almost over but it looks as if someone has already worked on Mystery House at
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/mystery/about.php 

[Unknown,Unknown]

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.

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