Oh crap, missed these posts!  Thanks for the advice/help.  I'm still really interested in using that image or even buying it outright.

i will go ahead and ask in #ansi about whether or not anybody in there knows the origins of this. its a possibility, there are still a few dinos in there.

i would say that the artist even if they were found would give permission, and be glad that you cared, but this thread is enough of a reasonable effort id say, i'll report back soon

late reply, but here goes: this is probably an 'orphan work,' i.e., a work that's still legally owned (copyrighted) by someone, but whose owner can't be located. legally, you're just required to make a 'reasonable effort' to locate the owner and ask for permission to use. if you do that and come up empty, you can go ahead and use it…

I had that program as a kid, think it came with the amiga pack that we had, it had a few music progs with it and the sampler hardware thing. Always thought it was a cool picture.

Hmmmm... well one thing I thought about doing was getting a graphics dump of the image from my Amiga and converting that to a usable form... I don't know if that's any more or less "infringe-y" than just scanning the box art tho.

Two things I can add, not counting the disclaimers of "I am not a lawyer" and "I really only know how it works in USA,"

It is correct that defunct companies often have their IPs auctioned when they are dissolved if they are dissolved by a judge in bankruptcy court. If this is the case, you may have a hard time getting rights to the picture. However, if you make your own "cover" of the picture and use it as a trademark, you may, because if it has not been used in your territory to market a service such as yours, the trademark is abandoned and is yours to assume if you want.

Repeating, not a lawyer, US only.

now that's a beautiful skull.

now that's a beautiful skull.

Thanks for that.  I'll gather up those links as well and put together a good post for EAB... if I'm lucky somebody that worked on the product might actually be on there (good call).

i just wrote a responce and then my browser fucking crashed.

they went under the name of MichTron in the US for some products.

they were taken over by hisoft in 93.

just a quick hunt on google if that helps - cant be arsed to find the links again : P

EAB might be more help with amiga stuff?

Interesting!  I got this result (they're listed as dissolved since 1996)

http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/9275e … ompdetails

Look for a company number
You may still find it in the register:
http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/
(click the WebCheck link)

That's what I would hope. 

And I'm kinda sorta using it already:  http://datathrash.com

Anyone cool enough to design that skull is cool enough to let you use it 20 years after the fact. Use it now and figure it out later!

Only partially joking, of course.

Thanks uB.  I've got the Amiga version of this sampler and have been going through all the documentation carefully.  So far the only credit at all is "copyright Microdeal Ltd. 1991"