No One Knows Who Owns NOLF [Apr 06, 2013, 11:40 am ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
A post on
One Of Swords has a new episode of
One of Swords TV
where "Activision community management team of one" Dan Amrich attempts to sort
through the sticky issue of who owns the rights to No One Lives Forever,
Monolith's spy spoof series, last known to be the property of Vivendi Games
after they acquired with the Fox Interactive catalog. Since Vivendi eventually
merged with Activision, he seems like the one to ask, and Dan explains that some
of the IP they ended up with as a result of that merger has since been sold off,
using the example of Leisure Suit Larry, and that many of the games they
retained are now being sold on GOG.com, using the example of the King's Quest
series. As for NOLF, he says this is something he's asked about himself, going
on to explain:
The person that I normally talk to about this stuff does not believe that we currently the rights. They've never seen it, they've never been given the permission to put that stuff on Good Old Games. He said, basically, 'If we had it, I would love to be able to reissue those old games.' So, that leaves the question if Activision no longer has the rights to No One Lives Forever, who does? Monolith was the developer that handled those games, and they are now part of WB. So I thought, maybe at the time when Activision was saying 'we'll keep these, we'll leave these, we'll sell these, whatever,' maybe Monolith stepped up and took their IP back. So I contacted a friend at Monolith... and he doesn't know. Uh, so, unfortunately, all I can definitively say is that at this time I do not believe that Activision has the rights to No One Lives Forever.
jimnms wrote on Apr 7, 2013, 03:41:But see, that would actually make some sorta sense, which is why its not in the law.
If no one steps up and claims ownership, the developers or original publisher should get to decide what to do with them.
Actually, sometimes that happens if the people who signed the contracts were smart enough to put it in there. Stuff like reverting to the devs if nothing is done with the IP after 10 years or some such. I think thats what happened with psychonauts since that IP finally went back to double fine. Problem is, most people are pretty clueless about things like that, especially at the time they are doing their first games.
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