| ▲ | october8140 12 hours ago | |
This should work for video game developers right? Can they reclaim ownership of the games they created in the 80s/90s that have been abandoned? | ||
| ▲ | 0110101001 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | |
Not exactly the same, but in Japan (where obviously many of the great games of the 80s and 90s were authored) there's a mechanism to acquire a license from the government to publish abandonware. The government collects a royalty from the new distributor that it holds in case a valid copyright holder comes forward. Little Samson, a late-era NES game that because of its rarity can sell for thousands, was developed by a now-defunct company and is getting a re-release next year using this process. https://www.timeextension.com/news/2025/10/daunting-limited-... | ||
| ▲ | monkeywork 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |
If the developer was a work for hire and never owned the copyright then no. If the developer licensed the game to a publisher then maybe. | ||
| ▲ | crooked-v 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | |
Video game copyrights were rarely ever held by a single person, even in the early days of the industry. | ||