Happy 20th Birthday To 'No One Lives Forever', The Classic PC Game That Can't Be Sold Today Thanks To IP

Tue, 17 Nov 2020 06:02:43 +1100

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201111/10541245687/happy-20th-birthday-to-no-one-lives-forever-classic-pc-game-that-cant-be-sold-today-thanks-to-ip.shtml>

"Legal gridlock is being extremely kind. Why you cannot buy this game is
one of the most frustrating stories in intellectual property. We
discussed much of this back in 2015. Nightdive Studios is a company that
buys up the rights to older video games, updates and/or remasters them
for modern gaming hardware, and then rereleases them. And we're talking
about a professional operation that has managed to rerelease games like
Doom 64, 7th Guest, and System Shock. In other words, these guys are
legit and they know what they're doing.

And they really, really wanted to give No One Lives Forever the
treatment. There was just one problem: nobody seems to know who holds
the copyright for the game, but everyone independently has told
Nightdive that they'll sue if they make the game. Warner Bros.,
Activision, and 20th Centry Fox all might own the copyright to the game,
except that the paperwork for how the rights all shake out was contrived
in a time before such records were digitized. So, someone owns the
rights to this game. And Nightdive very much wants to work out an
arrangement with whoever that someone is. But none of the three
potential owners are willing to go hunt down the paperwork so such a
deal could be worked out."

A classic game that I’m lucky enough to own a physical copy of.

Cheers,
        *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

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