egr
Offline
Abandoned on Fire
My Facebook account wrote:

I very seriously would like to purchase the rights to the skull image used in the packaging and software splash screen for Microdeal's Stereo Master sampler. Of course the company is long out of business. Does anyone have some legal type knowledge that could help me with a starting point? Even feasible?

What it says up there but also I started thinking about buying images like this the way one would buy any other type of art.  The copyright/trademark stuff makes it difficult but I know there are people on here that work in various electronic entertainment industries.  Any idea how this might be handled?

µB
Offline
A gray world of dread

I think it highly depends on how the company was dissolved. If the IPs where auctioned off, for example. Or if the company died while owned by a larger body. Sometimes rights go to the distributor. Your only chance is to try and get in contact with someone who was in charge of this stuff when the company was still there. If you're very lucky, the trademark is registered under the new owner.

I know IPs can vanish into legal limbo, where nobody knows who owns what (which is another glaring fault in the current copyright system, imo), but it's risky to just assume public domain - or rather, that nobody cares, because eventually someone does care. Many indie game developers/modders who want to use IPs of bygone companies face the same problem.

Maybe your best bet is to try and get in touch with the artist, if he/she is credited.

Disclaimer: No lawyer, just have seen this kind of thing happen with game IPs

egr
Offline
Abandoned on Fire

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"  sad

RG
Offline
Milwaukee, WI

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.

egr
Offline
Abandoned on Fire
RG wrote:

Anyone cool enough to design that skull is cool enough to let you use it 20 years after the fact.

That's what I would hope.  smile

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

Last edited by egr (Aug 9, 2011 3:19 pm)

µB
Offline
A gray world of dread

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

egr
Offline
Abandoned on Fire
µB wrote:

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

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

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

Jellica
Offline
England

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?

egr
Offline
Abandoned on Fire
Jellica wrote:

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?

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).

PULSELOOPER
Offline
São Paulo, Brazil

now that's a beautiful skull.

PULSELOOPER
Offline
São Paulo, Brazil

now that's a beautiful skull.

chunter
Offline
Brunswick, GA USA

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.

egr
Offline
Abandoned on Fire
chunter wrote:

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.

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.

poisoncut
Offline
liverpool - uk

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.

mjz
Offline
Canada

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…

tempsoundsolutions
Offline
TSSBAY01

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